For the reason for our boasting is this--the testimony of our own conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, and in reliance not on worldly wisdom but on the gracious help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and above all in our relations with you.

For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have written before, or from what indeed you already recognize as truth and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end;

It was because I entertained this confidence that I intended to visit you before going elsewhere--so that you might receive a twofold proof of God's favour--

Now when I came into the Troad to spread there the Good News about the Christ, even though in the Lord's providence a door stood open before me,

For, in fact, that which was once resplendent in glory has no glory at all in this respect, that it pales before the glory which surpasses it.

For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgement-seat in our true characters, in order that each may then receive an award for his actions in this life, in accordance with what he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless.

I have thought it absolutely necessary therefore to request these brethren to visit you before I myself come, and to make sure beforehand that the gift of love which you have already promised may be ready as a gift of love, and may not seem to have been something which I have extorted from you.