n which you were inferior to
the rest of the churches, except that I was not burdensome to you?
Forgive me this wrong.

10 [12:14]Behold, I am ready to come to you a third time, and I will
not be burdensome to you; for I seek not yours, but you. For the
children ought not to lay up treasure for the parents, but the parents
for the children. [12:15]And I most gladly will spend and will be spent
for your souls, even if the more abundantly I love you the less I am
loved. [12:16]Be it so, I was not burdensome to you; but being crafty I
caught you with deceit. [12:17]Did I make any thing out of you by any
of those I sent to you? [12:18]I requested Titus, and sent the brother
with him; did Titus make any thing out of you? Did we not walk in the
same spirit, in the same steps?

CHAPTER IV.

PROPOSED VISIT, ETC.

1 [12:19]Do you again think that we are defending ourselves? We speak
in Christ before God; all these things, beloved, are for your
edification. [12:20]For I fear lest when I come I shall not find you
such as I wish, and that I shall be found such as you wish not; lest
there shall be strife, envy, anger, contentions, evil speakings,
whisperings, pride, dissensions; [12:21]lest when I come again my God
shall humble me before you, and I shall mourn for many who have sinned,
and not changed their minds, in respect to impurity and fornication and
lewdness which they have committed.

2 [13:1]This third time I am coming to you; by the mouth of two or
three witnesses shall every word be established. [13:2]I have said
before, and I now foretell as if present a second time, although
absent, to those who have already sinned and to all the rest, that if I
come again I will not spare; [13:3]since you seek a proof in me of
Christ speaking, who is not weak to you but powerful in you; [13:4]for
though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God;
and we also are weak in him, but live with him by the power of God in
you.

3 [13:5]Try yourselves, whether you are in the faith; prove yourselves;
or know you not yourselves that Christ is in you unless you are
reprobates? [13:6]But I hope you will know that we are not reprobates.
[13:7]We wish to God that you may do no evil, not that we may appear
approved, but that you may do good though we should be as reprobates.
[13:8]For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
[13:9]For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong; and we desire
this,