And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
Working with our own hands - namely, "even unto this present hour" (1 Corinthians 4:11): so continuous are my hardships. This is not stated in the narrative of Paul's proceedings at Ephesus, whence he wrote this letter (though it is expressly stated of him at Corinth, (cf. Acts 18:3, etc., and Acts 19:1-41.) But in his address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (Acts 20:34) he says, "Ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities," etc. The undesignedness of the coincidence thus indirectly brought out is incompatible with forgery.