2 Corinthians 12:14

Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be a burden to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. [There has been much dispute as to whether Paul says that this is his third visit, or the third time he has intended to visit. Evidently it was to be his third visit. See 2 Corinthians 2:1; 2 Corinthians 12:21; 2 Corinthians 13:1-2. Knowing that if this letter moved them to repentance or shame, the Corinthians would wish him to accept some compensation for his services, and that if he did so his enemies would revive their slanders against him, and assert that his whole purpose in writing was to gratify his mercenary desires, Paul makes it easy to decline any such offer on their part by declining it now beforehand. He asserts that he will maintain himself without their support, as he has done on his two former visits, and lest they should resent this independence on his part, he declares that he is actuated thereto by an intense love for them--a love which seeks not their money for his benefit, but their souls for their own benefit. He affectionately, yet almost playfully, bases his conduct on that rule as to parents and children which, though it sometimes permits children to aid parents, obliges parents always to maintain children. He was their spiritual father (1 Corinthians 4:14-15), and he claims the obligations of his parental relation as if they were much-coveted rights. Thus, as throughout the epistle, the thunders of the apostle have quickly subsided into the tender accents of the parent.]