004:012 Brethren, become as I am, I beseech you; for I have also become
like you. In no respect did you behave badly to me.
004:013 And you know that in those early days it was on account
of bodily infirmity that I proclaimed the Good News to you,
004:014 and yet the bodily infirmity which was such a trial to you,
you did not regard with contempt or loathing, but you received
me as if I had been an angel of God or Christ Jesus Himself!
004:015 I ask you, then, what has become of your self-congratulations?
For I bear you witness that had it been possible you would
have torn out your own eyes and have given them to me.
004:016 Can it be that I have become your enemy through speaking
the truth to you?
004:017 These men pay court to you, but not with honourable motives.
They want to exclude you, so that you may pay court to them.
004:018 It is always an honourable thing to be courted in an honourable cause;
always, and not only when I am with you, my children—
004:019 you for whom I am again, as it were, undergoing the pains
of childbirth, until Christ is fully formed within you.
004:020 Would that I were with you and could change my tone, for I am
perplexed about you.
004:021 Tell me—you who want to continue to be subject to Law—
will you not listen to the Law?