14. Look, I’m ready to visit you a third time, and I won’t be a burden on you. I don’t want your things; I want you. It isn’t the children’s responsibility to save up for their parents but parents for children.
15. I will very gladly spend and be spent for your sake. If I love you more, will you love me less?
16. We all know that I didn’t place a burden on you, but in spite of that you think I’m a con artist who fooled you with a trick.
17. I haven’t taken advantage of you through any of the people I sent to you, have I?
18. I strongly encouraged Titus to go to you and sent the brother with him. Titus didn’t take advantage of you, did he? Didn’t we live by the same Spirit? Didn’t we walk in the same footsteps?
19. Have you been thinking up to now that we are defending ourselves to you? Actually, we are speaking in the sight of God and in Christ. Dear friends, everything is meant to build you up.
20. I’m afraid that maybe when I come you will be different from the way I want you to be, and that I’ll be different from the way you want me to be. I’m afraid that there might be fighting, obsession, losing your temper, competitive opposition, backstabbing, gossip, conceit, and disorderly conduct.
21. I’m afraid that when I come again, my God may embarrass me in front of you. I might have to go into mourning over all the people who have sinned before and haven’t changed their hearts and lives from what they used to practice: moral corruption, sexual immorality, and doing whatever feels good.