If we meet with trouble, it is for the sake of your consolation and salvation; and, if we find consolation, it is for the sake of the consolation that you will experience when you are called to endure the very sufferings that we ourselves are enduring;

For mark the effects of this very thing--your having sorrowed with a godly sorrow--what earnestness it has called forth in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing affection, what jealousy, what meting out of justice! You have completely wiped away reproach from yourselves in the matter.

I wish you would bear with me [while I indulge] in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me [as you read this].

Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me;

I called Titus, and sent the brother along with him: whether did Titus defraud you? did we not walk by the same Spirit? did we not in the same tracks?