Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use trickery or pervert God's word. By clear statements of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience before God.

For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of the Messiah, so that each of us may receive what he deserves for what he has done in his body, whether good or worthless.

I am not saying this to condemn you. I told you before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together.

So, even though I wrote to you, it wasn't because of the man who did the wrong or because of the man who was hurt. Instead, I wrote to you so that your devotion to us might be made perfectly clear to you before God.

Have you been thinking all along that we are trying to defend ourselves before you? We are speaking before God in the authority of the Messiah, and everything, dear friends, is meant to build you up.

I am afraid that when I come my God may again humble me before you and that I may have to grieve over many who formerly lived in sin and have not repented of their impurity, sexual immorality, and promiscuity that they once practiced.