Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double benefit.

I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea.

Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.

lest if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, wenot to say anything about you would be ashamed of having been so confident.

For we are not overextending ourselves, as if we did not reach to you; we were the first to come even as far as you with the gospel of Christ.

Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden to you, for I seek not what is yours but you; for children ought not to lay up for their parents, but parents for their children.

For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you what I wish you to be, and you may not find me what you wish me to be; I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.

I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will have to mourn over many of those who sinned before and have not repented of the impurity, immorality, and lewdness which they have practiced.

I warned those who sinned in the past and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present the second time, that if I come again I will not spare them

I write these things while I am absent, in order that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority which the Lord gave me for building you up, and not for tearing you down.