9. Indeed, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.
10. He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us. We have put our hope in Him that He will deliver us again
11. while you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.
12. For this is our confidence: The testimony of our conscience is that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with God-given sincerity and purity, not by fleshly wisdom but by God’s grace.
13. Now we are writing nothing to you other than what you can read and also understand. I hope you will understand completely —
14. as you have partially understood us — that we are your reason for pride, as you are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.
15. I planned with this confidence to come to you first, so you could have a double benefit,
16. and to go on to Macedonia with your help, then come to you again from Macedonia and be given a start by you on my journey to Judea.
17. So when I planned this, was I irresponsible? Or what I plan, do I plan in a purely human way so that I say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” simultaneously?