Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth, and all God's people all over Greece;

God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father, and the God always ready to comfort!

He comforts me in all my trouble, so that I can comfort people who are in any trouble with the comfort with which I myself am comforted by God.

Why, I felt in my heart that the end must be death. That was to keep me from relying on myself instead of on God, who can even raise the dead.

You must help me by your prayers, so that many will give thanks to God on my behalf for the blessing granted me in answer to many prayers.

For my boast is what my conscience tells me, that my relations to the world and still more to you have been marked by pure motives and godly sincerity, not by worldly shrewdness but by the favor of God.

As surely as God can be relied on, there has been no equivocation about our message to you.

The Son of God, Christ Jesus, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus, Timothy, and I, you have not found wavering between "Yes" and "No." With him it has always been "Yes,"

for to all the promises of God he supplies the "Yes" that confirms them. That is why we utter the "Amen" through him, when we give glory to God.

But it is God who guarantees us and you to Christ; he has anointed us

But upon my soul I call God to witness that it is simply to spare you that I have stayed away from Corinth.

When I went to Troas to preach the good news of the Christ there, I found a good opening for the Lord's work,

But thank God! he always leads me in his triumphal train, through Christ, and spreads the perfume of knowledge of him everywhere through me as his censer-bearer.

Yes, I am the fragrance of Christ to God, diffused among those who are being saved, and those who are perishing alike;

For I am no peddler of God's message, like most men, but like a man of sincerity, commissioned by God and in his presence, in union with Christ I utter his message.

You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by me, written not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God, and not on tablets of stone, but on the human heart.

Such is the confidence that I have through Christ in my relations to God.

Not that I am of myself qualified to claim anything as originating with me. My qualification is from God,

So since by the mercy of God I am engaged in this service, I never lose heart.

I disown disgraceful, underhanded ways. I refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's message. It is by the open statement of the truth that I would commend myself to every human conscience in the sight of God.

If the meaning of my preaching of the good news is veiled at all, it is so only in the case of those who are on the way to destruction.

In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep the light of the good news of the glorious Christ, the likeness of God, from dawning upon them.

For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in my heart, to give me the light of the knowledge of God's glory, that is on the face of Christ.

But I have this treasure in a mere ear then jar, to show that its amazing power belongs to God and not to me.

I am hard pressed on every side, but never cut off: perplexed, but not driven to despair;

For it is all for your benefit, in order that as God's favor reaches greater and greater numbers, it may result in more and more thanksgiving in praise of God.

For I know that if this earthly tent that I live in is taken down, God will provide me a building in heaven to live in, not built by human hands but eternal.

It is God himself who has prepared me for this change, and he has given me the Spirit as his guaranty.

For we must all appear in our true characters before the tribunal of the Christ, each to be repaid with good or evil for the life he has lived in the body.

It is with this knowledge of what the fear of the Lord means that I appeal to men. My true character is perfectly plain to God, and I hope to your consciences too.

For if I was out of my senses, as they say, it was between God and me; and if I am in my right mind, it is for your good.

All this comes from God, who through Christ has reconciled me to himself, and has commissioned me to proclaim this reconciliation??19 how God through Christ reconciled the world to himself, refusing to count men's offenses against them, and intrusted me with the message of reconciliation.

It is for Christ, therefore, that I am an envoy, seeing that God makes his appeal through me. On Christ's behalf I beg you to be reconciled to God.

He made him who knew nothing of sin to be sin, for our sake, so that through union with him we might become God's uprightness.

As God's fellow-worker, I appeal to you, too, not to accept the favor of God and then waste it.

On the contrary, as a servant of God I try in every way to commend myself to them, through my great endurance in troubles, difficulties, hardships,

the truth of my teaching, and the power of God; with the weapons of uprightness for the right hand and the left,

Do not get into close and incongruous relations with unbelievers. What partnership can uprightness have with iniquity, or what can light have to do with darkness?

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."

So since we have promises like these, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves of everything that can defile body or spirit, and by reverence for God make our consecration complete.

Make room for me in your hearts. I have not wronged or harmed or got the better of anybody.

For even when I reached Macedonia, my poor human nature could get no relief??here was trouble at every turn; fighting without, and fear within.

But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted me by the coming of Titus,

I am glad of it now; not because you had your feelings hurt, but because having them hurt led you to repent, for you took it as God meant you to do, so that you should not lose anything at all through me.

For the pain that God approves results in a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets; but the world's pain results in death.

See how earnest this God-given pain has made you! how eager to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how eager to see me, how zealous, how avenging! At every point you have proved that you are clear of this matter.

So although I did write to you, it was not on account of the offender, nor of the injured man, but in the sight of God to reveal to you your devotion to me.

I must tell you, brothers, how the favor of God has been shown in the churches of Macedonia,

They did far more than I hoped, for first in obedience to God's will, they gave themselves to the Lord, and to me.

but to equalize the burden, and in the present situation to have your plenty make up for what they need, so that some day their plenty may make up for what you need, and so things may be made equal??15 as the Scripture says, "The man who got much did not have too much, and the man who got little did not have too little."

Thank God, he puts the same devotion to you that I feel into Titus' heart,

I am sending with him his brother, who is famous in all the churches for his work in spreading the good news.

So I have thought it necessary to ask these brothers to go on to you ahead of me, to arrange in advance for this gift you have promised, so as to have it ready, like an expression of your good will, not of your avarice.

Everyone must give what he has made up his mind to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion; God loves a man who is glad to give.

God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance so that you will always have enough for every situation, and ample means for every good enterprise:

You will grow rich in every way, so that through me you can show perfect liberality that will make men thank God for it.

For the rendering of this service does more than supply the wants of God's people; it results in a wealth of thanksgiving to God.

The way you stand the test of this service must do honor to God, through your fidelity to what you profess as to the good news of Christ, and through the liberality of your contributions for them and for all others;

then they will long for you and pray for you, because of the extraordinary favor God has shown you.

Thank God for his indescribable gift!

I destroy arguments and every obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God, and I take captive every thought and make it obey Christ,

I do not indeed venture to class or compare myself with certain individuals who approve of themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they do not show good sense.

But my boasting will not be extravagant, nor exceed the limits God has allowed me, which reach all the way to you.

It is no strain for me to do this, as it might be for people who had never got so far, for I was the first to come all the way to you with the good news of the Christ.

Do you think that I did wrong in degrading myself to uplift you, because I preached God's good news to you without any compensation?

And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do.

And I shall go on doing as I do, so as to cut the ground from under those who want to make out that in their boasted apostleship they work on the same terms that I do.

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, he who is forever blessed, knows that I am telling the truth.

but I was lowered in a basket from an opening in the wall, and got out of his clutches.

I know of a man fourteen years ago??hether in the body or out of it, I do not know, God knows??eing actually caught up to the third heaven.

And I know that this man?? do not know whether it was in the body or out of it, God knows??4 was caught up into Paradise, and heard things that must not be told, which no human being can repeat.

Have you been supposing all along that it is before you I have been defending myself? It is in the sight of God and as a follower of Christ that I have been speaking. But it is all to do you good, dear friends,

and that when I come back my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn over many who have kept on in their old sins and have never repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality in which they have indulged.

Even if he was crucified through weakness, by the power of God he is alive. For we are weak as he was, but you will find that by the power of God we will be alive as he is.

But I pray to God that you may not do wrong??ot to prove me equal to the test, but that you should do right even if I fail to stand it.

Now brothers, goodbye! Be what you ought to be, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, and God the source of love and peace will be with you.

All God's people wish to be remembered to you.

The blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the participation in the holy Spirit be with you all.