Of this man: literally “of such a one.” This has been taken by some scholars as meaning “of such an incident.” Moffatt, for example, begins this verse “of an experience like that I am prepared to boast.” But most scholars agree in taking this expression as referring to the person who had the experience, as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation.

Except …: in Greek the words are literally “if not….” Some languages require that exception clauses be translated by separate sentences. In this case one may consider saying something like “I will boast only that I am weak” or “However I can boast that I lack strength.”

In some languages it may be more natural to reorder the elements in this verse slightly: “I will boast about a person like that, but I will not boast about myself unless it is to show how frail I am.”

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 .