as some of you have come to understand me, and that you will understand that you have a right to be proud of me, as I have of you, on the Day of our Lord Jesus.

It was because I was sure of this that I wanted to come to see you before going anywhere else, to give you a double pleasure;

I was going to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and then to come back to you from Macedonia and have you see me off for Judea.

For in comparison with its surpassing splendor, what was splendid has come to have no splendor at all.

And all of us, reflecting the splendor of the Lord in our unveiled faces, are being changed into likeness to him, from one degree of splendor to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

All this comes from God, who through Christ has reconciled me to himself, and has commissioned me to proclaim this reconciliation??19 how God through Christ reconciled the world to himself, refusing to count men's offenses against them, and intrusted me with the message of reconciliation.

For he says, "I have listened to you at a welcome time, And helped you on a day of deliverance!" Now the welcome time has come! This is the day of deliverance!

Therefore, "Come out from them, And separate from them, says the Lord, And touch nothing that is unclean. Then I will welcome you,

for if some people from Macedonia come with me, and find that you are not ready, it will humiliate me??o say nothing of you??or having expressed such confidence.

I beg you not to make me take as bold an attitude when I come, as I count on taking toward some people who suspect me of acting from worldly motives.

It is no strain for me to do this, as it might be for people who had never got so far, for I was the first to come all the way to you with the good news of the Christ.

For when somebody comes along and preaches another Jesus than the one I preached, or you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough!

Here it is the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I do not intend to be a burden to you now; for it is not your money but yourselves that I want; for children are not expected to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

for I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I want to find you, and that you may find me not as you want to find me. I am afraid that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, bad feeling, rivalry, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder,

and that when I come back my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn over many who have kept on in their old sins and have never repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality in which they have indulged.

Those who have kept on in their old sins and all the rest I have warned, and I warn them now while I am still away, as I did on my second visit, that if I come back I will spare nobody??3 since you demand proof that Christ really speaks through me. He is not weak in dealing with you. On the contrary, right among you he exhibits his power.

That is why I write this while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be harsh in my use of the authority the Lord has given me, for it was to build you up, not to pull you down.