1. Now I myself, Paul, urge you through the gentleness and clemency of Christ, I who am humble when face to face with you, but brave toward you when absent,
2. I beg you that, when present, I may not have to be brave with that confidence with which I intend to act boldly against some who consider us as acting according to the flesh.
3. For, although we are in the flesh, we do not battle according to the flesh,
4. for the weapons of our battle are not of flesh but are enormously powerful, capable of destroying fortresses. We destroy arguments
5. and every pretension raising itself against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive in obedience to Christ,
6. and we are ready to punish every disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
7. Look at what confronts you. Whoever is confident of belonging to Christ should consider that as he belongs to Christ, so do we.
8. And even if I should boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I shall not be put to shame.
9. May I not seem as one frightening you through letters.
10. For someone will say, “His letters are severe and forceful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.”
11. Such a person must understand that what we are in word through letters when absent, that we also are in action when present.