Spend and be spent: Paul continues to use terms related to money (see “lay up” in verse 14). Two closely related verbs are used here, but the second is more intense in meaning and is passive in form; literally “be spent out,” that is, spent until nothing is left. Revised English Bible attempts to reflect the intensive nature of the second verb by adding “to the limit.” In many languages it will be impossible to retain the biblical image of Paul himself being “spent,” using the same term as used for spending money. The idea of “being spent” for someone may have to be translated “to give oneself” or “to commit oneself.” Contemporary English Version translates “I will gladly give all that I have and all that I am.”

The word souls here refers to the whole person. So it will be more natural in most languages to translate “for you” or “for your lives.”

The more … the less: many languages require clarification of the comparisons here. More or less than what or whom? While there is a comparison between the way Paul loves the Corinthians and the way they love him, the first term may be translated in an absolute sense. Many versions translate the more as “too much.” The word used here is, in fact, the same as in 10.8, where Revised Standard Version renders it “too much.” It is also translated “abundant” (2.4), “excessive” (2.7), and “all the more” (7.15). One version says “If I love you beyond limit like that, will you love me so little?”

Am I to be loved the less: the Greek has no explicit agent for the verb be loved. Good News Translation correctly makes explicit that the Corinthians are the agent.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellingworth, Paul. A Handbook on Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .