8 My struggle in Asia has been beyond words; I have been through deep waters; so far as my own powers, my own physical self and will went, I despaired;
9 I had the sentence of death in me, but even so, I knew that my trust and faith were in another, in God who raises the dead, to whom belongs the everlasting victory.
10 And so He succoured me, He drew me out of this manifest death, and set my feet upon it, and I am persuaded now that so will it ever be, and I shall feel His support for evermore —
11 your own work, your prayers and spiritual help assisting — expressed in that gratitude of the many for God's marvellous blessing and succour which He shows to me so abundantly.
12 Now the only boast I have in myself for this is simply my pure and free conscience which knows that I live and act in the world not on the lines of man's carnal wisdom, but by His grace, and this is especially the case in my relations with you.
13-14 You yourselves are my boast, and I am yours, you know it already; I have no other thoughts, no other motive than that (you have known it always and always will know it), even what I write to you now that I have no boast, no claim to aught in the day of the Lord Jesus but the love that is common to us both, the love we bear one another.
15 With this deep confidence in my heart, it was my desire on the former occasion to come to you as I wrote, to come for the second time and renew the joy we had before in meeting.