Paul speaks about false teachers
1 Please be patient with me! I am speaking like a fool. I know that you are being patient with me already! 2 God wants to keep you for himself. And that is what I want too. I have brought you to Christ, like a pure bride who marries one husband. I want you to be pure and to belong only to him. 3 Remember how the snake deceived Eve. Because he was clever, she believed his lies. I am afraid that the same thing might happen to you. False teachers may make you believe wrong things. Then you will no longer love Christ in a pure and honest way. 4 You are ready to listen to any false teachers who come to you. They might tell you about a different Jesus from the Jesus that we told you about. They might want you to receive a different spirit from the Spirit that you received from us. They might tell you a different kind of good news from the message that you heard from us. You seem to accept all this!
5 Those teachers call themselves very special apostles. But I think that I am as special as they are! 6 Perhaps I do not speak as well as they speak. But I do know what I am speaking about. We have always made this very clear to you in everything that we do.
7 When I told you God's good news, I never asked you to pay me anything. I made myself less important so that you could be more important. I do not think that I was wrong to do that. 8 Believers in other churches gave money to me so that I could serve you. It is like I was robbing them so that I could help you. 9 When I was there with you, I never made you help me. Even when I needed something, I did not cause trouble to anyone. Instead, the believers who came from Macedonia gave me everything that I needed. I was very careful never to cause you to have trouble. And I will continue to be careful like that. 10 The message that I speak about Christ is true. So I will continue to be proud of how I lived among you. Nobody in the whole region of Achaia can stop me doing that. 11 You must not think that I say this because I do not love you. God himself knows that I love you.
12 Yes, I will continue to work among you in the way that I am already doing. I will not take any pay from you. Then there will be no chance for those other teachers to be proud about themselves. They will not be able to say that they work in the same way that we do. 13 Those people are false apostles. They do not work in an honest way. They try to make people think that Christ has sent them as his apostles. 14 That should not surprise you! Even Satan can change himself to look like an angel who belongs to the light. 15 So do not be surprised when Satan's servants do the same thing. They can also seem to be serving God. They may seem to be doing good things, but really what they do is bad. So God will punish them in the end.
