who comforts us in all our suffering, so that we may be able to comfort others in all their suffering, as we ourselves are being comforted by God.

For as the Messiah's sufferings overflow into us, so also our comfort overflows through the Messiah.

Our hope for you is unshaken, because we know that as you share our sufferings, you also share our comfort.

as you also help us by your prayers for us. Then many people will thank God on our behalf because of the favor shown us through the prayers of many.

just as you have already understood us partially, so that on the Day of our Lord Jesus we can be your reason to boast, even as you are ours.

As certainly as God is faithful, we haven't talked to you with mixed messages like that.

Now the one who makes us and you as well secure in union with the Messiah and has anointed us is God,

who has placed his seal on us and has given us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.

I call upon God as a witness on my behalf that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.

As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are becoming more like him with ever-increasing glory by the Lord's Spirit.

For we do not preach ourselves, but rather Jesus the Messiah as Lord, and ourselves as merely your servants for Jesus' sake.

All this is for your sake so that, as his grace spreads, more and more people will give thanks and glorify God.

God has prepared us for this and has given us his Spirit as a guarantee.

Therefore, we are always confident, and we know that as long as we are at home in this body we are away from the Lord.

Therefore, we are the Messiah's representatives, as though God were pleading through us. We plead on the Messiah's behalf: "Be reconciled to God!"

through honor and dishonor; through ill repute and good repute; perceived as deceivers and yet true,

as unknown and yet well-known, as dying and yet as you see very much alive, as punished and yet not killed,

as sorrowful and yet always rejoicing, as poor and yet enriching many, as having nothing and yet possessing everything.

Do us a favor I ask you as my children and open wide your hearts.

What agreement can a temple of God make with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said: "I will live and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people."

His affection for you is even greater as he remembers how obedient all of you were and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling.

As it is written, "The person who had much did not have too much, and the person who had little did not have too little."

More than that, he has also been selected by the churches to travel with us while we are administering this work of kindness for the glory of the Lord and as evidence of our eagerness to help.

As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker on your behalf. Our brothers, emissaries from the churches, are bringing glory to the Messiah.

Now I have sent the brothers so that our boasting about you in this matter may not prove to be an idle boast, and so that you may stand ready, just as I said.

Therefore, I thought it necessary to urge these brothers to visit you ahead of me, to make arrangements in advance for this gift you promised, and to have it ready as something given generously and not forced.

As it is written, "He scatters everywhere and gives to the poor; his righteousness lasts forever."

Because your service in giving proves your love, you will be glorifying God as you obey what your confession of the Messiah's gospel demands, since you are generous in sharing with them and with everyone else.

Look at the plain facts! If anyone is confident that he belongs to the Messiah, he should remind himself of this: Just as he belongs to the Messiah, so do we.

We will not boast about what cannot be evaluated. Instead, we will stay within the field that God assigned us, so as to reach even you.

For it is not as though we were overstepping our limits when we came to you. We were the first to reach you with the gospel of the Messiah.

I am jealous of you with God's own jealousy, because I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to the Messiah.

However, I am afraid that just as the serpent deceived Eve by its tricks, so your minds may somehow be lured away from sincere and pure devotion to the Messiah.

Even though I may be untrained as an orator, I am not so in the field of knowledge. We have made this clear to all of you in every possible way.

As surely as the truth of the Messiah is in me, my boasting will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.

But I will go on doing what I'm doing in order to deny an opportunity to those people who want an opportunity to be recognized as our equals in the work they are boasting about.

Such people are false apostles, dishonest workers who are masquerading as apostles of the Messiah.

And no wonder, since Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

So it is not surprising if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their doom will match their deeds!

When I talk as a confident boaster, I am not talking with the Lord's authority but like a fool.

I will boast about this man, but as for myself I will boast only about my weaknesses.

I am afraid that I may come and somehow find you not as I want to find you, and that you may find me not as you want to find me. Perhaps there will be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorderly conduct.

I have already warned those who sinned previously and all the rest. Although I am absent now, I am warning them as I did on my second visit: If I come back, I will not spare you,