I told him of my pride in you, and I have not been disappointed. No, just as all I have had to say to you has been true, so all I said about you to Titus, all my pride in you, has also proved true.

My hopes for you are unshaken. For I know that just as surely as you share my sufferings, just so surely you will share my comfort.

just as you have also understood us in part, that we are your reason for boasting, just as you [are] also ours in the day of our Lord Jesus.

And we all, with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory into glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

But just as you excel in everything--in faith and in speaking and in knowledge and with all diligence and in the love from us [that is] in you--so may you excel in this grace also.

At the same time I am sending these brothers just in case my pride in you should prove an empty boast in this particular instance; I want you to be "all ready," as I have been telling them that you would be,

I have said it, and I say it again before I come, just as if I were with you on my second visit, though for the moment absent, I say to those who have been long sinning, as well as to all others--that if I come again, I shall spare no one.

So, when I made this decision, was I just vacillating [in uncertainty]? Or, do I make plans in a worldly way [i.e., just to suit my own fancy], so that my "yes" and "no" [do not really mean anything]?

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

You look at things externally. If anyone is sure he belongs to Christ, let him think again and understand that I belong to Christ just as much as he.

Such people had better understand that when I arrive and take action I will do just as I say I will in my letters when I am far away.

But I am afraid that just as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts will be led astray from their single-hearted fidelity to Christ.

For just as my sufferings for Christ are running over the cup, so through Christ my comfort is running over too.

For what I am writing you is nothing more than what you can read and understand, and I hope that you will understand it perfectly, just as some of you have come to understand me partially;

Now finish doing it too, so that your readiness to finish it may be just like your readiness to start it, in accordance with what you have.

just as the Scripture says, "The man who gathered much did not have too much, and the man who gathered little did not have too little."

But when I talk in this boastful confidence, I am not talking in accordance with the way the Lord talked, but just as a fool talks.