1 As a worker with him I beseech you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
2 For he said: In an acceptable time have I heard thee, And in the day of salvation have I succored thee. Behold, now is the acceptable time! behold, now is the day of salvation!
3 I am giving no one a cause of stumbling in order that my ministry may not be discredited;
4 but in every way I am striving to commend myself as God's minister by stedfast endurance, by afflictions, by troubles, by distresses,
5 by floggings, by imprisonment; in riots, in labors, in sleepless watching, in hunger and thirst;
6 with purity, understanding, patience, and kindness; by the Holy Spirit, by love sincere,
7 by a true teaching and an energy divine; by the weapons of righteousness, for attack or for defense,
8 amid honor or dishonor, amid evil report and good report; as a deceiver and yet true;
9 as unknown and yet well known; as at death's door, yet, strange to tell, I live on; as chastened, but not killed;
10 as grieved, but always glad; as poor, but making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
11 O Corinthians, I am unsealing my lips to you; my heart is wide open to you.
12 There is no narrowness in my love; but the narrowness is in your own.
13 I pray you, therefore, in fair exchange (I speak as to my children), let your hearts also be wide open to me.
14 Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? what communion has light with darkness?
15 What concord has Christ with Belial? What portion has a believer with an unbeliever?
16 And what compact has God's temple with idols? For we are a temple of the living God, as he has said: I will dwell among them, and walk about among them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.
17 Therefore, Come out from among them and separate yourselves, saith the Lord, touch not what is unclean;
18 then I will receive you and will be to you a Father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.