10. We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
11. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless
12. and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;
13. when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment.
14. I am writing you this not to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
15. Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
16. Therefore, I urge you, be imitators of me.
17. For this reason I am sending you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord; he will remind you of my ways in Christ [Jesus], just as I teach them everywhere in every church.
18. Some have become inflated with pride, as if I were not coming to you.
19. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord is willing, and I shall ascertain not the talk of these inflated people but their power.
20. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
21. Which do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a gentle spirit?