2 Corinthians 7:4-16 - A Letter That Caused Sadness

⁴ Much freedom of speech to me toward you; to me much boasting over you: I am filled with consolation, I superabound in joy in all your pressure.

⁵ For also, we having come to Macedonia, our flesh had no relaxation, but pressed in everything; without conflicts, within fears. ⁶ But God, comforting the humble, comforted us in the arrival of Titus; ⁷ And not only in his arrival, but also in the comfort which he was comforted in you, announcing to us your anxious desire, your lamentations, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced the more. ⁸ For if I also grieved you in the epistle, I regret not, and if I did regret: for I see that that epistle, if also for a time, grieved you. ⁹ Now I rejoice, not that ye were grieved, but that ye were grieved to repentance: for ye were grieved according to God, that ye be injured in nothing by us. ¹⁰ For grief according to God works repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but grief of the world works death. ¹¹ For behold, this same that ye grieve according to God, what care it wrought in you, but defence, but indignation, but fear, but anxious desire, but zeal, but punishing! In every thing ye recommended yourselves to be holy in this affair. ¹² Wherefore, if I also wrote to you, not for him having been unjust, for him having suffered injustice, but that your care for us might be made manifest to you before God. ¹³ Therefore have we been comforted in your comfort: and we rejoiced more abundantly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed from you all. ¹⁴ For if I have boasted anything to him of you, I was not ashamed; but as we spake all things to you in truth, so also was our boasting over Titus the truth. ¹⁵ And his bowels are more abundantly to you, remembering the obedience of you all, how with fear and tremor ye received him. ¹⁶ I rejoice that I place confidence in you in everything.