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;

as some of you have come to understand me, and that you will understand that you have a right to be proud of me, as I have of you, on the Day of our Lord Jesus.

And in this confidence was I minded the other time to have come unto you, that ye might have had yet one pleasure more,

and to have passed by you into Macedonia, and to have come again out of Macedonia unto you, and to have been led forth to Jewry ward of you.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—did not become “Yes and no”; on the contrary, a final “Yes” has come in Him.

But I call God to witness on my soul, that to spare you I have not yet come to Corinth.

But I determined this in myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness.

This is the very thing I wrote you, that when I did come I might not be made sad by the very people who ought to make me glad, for I had confidence in you all that my gladness would be gladness to you all.

The affliction I have had, comes only from a particular quarter, so that my resentment does not affect the whole church.

When I was come to Troas for Christ's gospel's sake - and a great door was opened unto me of the Lord -

Not that I am myself qualified to consider anything as coming from me myself. No, my qualification comes from God, for

Our fitness comes from God, who himself made us fit to be ministers of a New Covenant, of which the substance is, not a written Law, but a Spirit. For the written Law means Death, but the Spirit gives Life.

For if the ministering of death, by means of a covenant that was written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the sons of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses, on ac count of the glory of his face, which glory was to come to an end:

For in comparison with its surpassing splendor, what was splendid has come to have no splendor at all.

For if what was made ineffective came with glory, how much more has what remains come in glory!

and do not as Moses did, who put a vail over his face, so that the sons of Israel could not steadily look to the end of that which was to come to an end.

And all of us, reflecting the splendor of the Lord in our unveiled faces, are being changed into likeness to him, from one degree of splendor to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Therefore seeing that we have such an office, even as mercy is come on us, we faint not:

But we have this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power comes from God and not from us.

persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed ??10 wherever I go, I am being killed in the body as Jesus was, so that the life of Jesus may come out in my body:

every day of my life I am being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may come out within my mortal flesh.

Because we are certain that he who made the Lord Jesus come back from the dead, will do the same for us, and will give us a place in his glory with you.

For I know that if this earthly tent in which I live is taken down, I have a building in heaven which comes from God, a house not built by human hands but eternal.

For in this one we sigh, because we long to put on over it our dwelling which comes from Heaven--

Now he who has made us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a witness of what is to come.

Come what may, then, I am confident; I know that while I reside in the body I am away from the Lord

We have good courage, however, and are well pleased - rather to be away from home, out of the body, and to come home, unto the Lord.

For we all have to come before Christ to be judged; so that every one of us may get his reward for the things done in the body, good or bad.

For if anybody is in union with Christ, he is the work of a new creation; the old condition has passed away, a new condition has come.

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.

On Christ's behalf, then, I come as ambassador. It is as though God was entreating you, through me, on Christ's behalf I beg you to be reconciled to God.

He made Him who personally knew nothing of sin to be a sin-offering for us, so that through union with Him we might come into right standing with God.

For he says, "I have listened to you at a welcome time, And helped you on a day of deliverance!" Now the welcome time has come! This is the day of deliverance!

Do not come into close association with unbelievers, like oxen yoked with asses. For what is there in common between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what partnership has light with darkness?

Wherefore, "Come out from among them, and separate yourselves," saith the Lord, "and touch none unclean thing: so will I receive you,

For when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side: Outward was fighting, inward was fear.

For the sorrow that comes in accordance with the will of God results in repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets, but the sorrow the world produces results in death.

Now then, you are to the front in everything, in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all zeal, and in love for us ??do come to the front in this gracious enterprise as well.

And I am not saying this so that others may get off free, while the weight comes on you:

In order that their surplus may come to be for your deficiency: that there may come about an equality: -

For he not only consented to my request, but being thoroughly in earnest, comes to you of his own accord.

If any question comes up about Titus, he is my brother-worker, working with me for you; or about the others, they are the representatives of the churches to the glory of Christ.

lest peradventure if they of Macedonia come with me and find you unprepared, the boast that I made in this matter should be a shame to us: I say not unto you.

Wherefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, to come before hand unto you, for to prepare your good blessing promised afore, that it might be ready: so that it be a blessing, and not a defrauding.

Now [remember] this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows generously [that blessings may come to others] will also reap generously [and be blessed].

And God is able to make all grace [every favor and earthly blessing] come in abundance to you, so that you may always [under all circumstances, regardless of the need] have complete sufficiency in everything [being completely self-sufficient in Him], and have an abundance for every good work and act of charity.

This service shows what you are, it makes men praise God for the way you have come under the gospel of Christ which you confess, and for the generosity of your contributions to themselves and to all;

Now I Paul, myself, appeal to you by the humble-heartedness and selflessness of Christ??aul who "in your presence is humble, but bold enough when he is absent"??2 I beseech you, and I say, do not make me show my boldness, when I come in the boldness with which I think I shall show my courage against some who think that I am walking on the low level of the flesh.

I beg you not to make me take as bold an attitude when I come, as I count on taking toward some people who suspect me of acting from worldly motives.

Putting an end to reasonings, and every high thing which is lifted up against the knowledge of God, and causing every thought to come under the authority of Christ;

The things that lie on the surface, ye are looking at: - if anyone hath come to trust in himself that he is, Christ's, this, let him reckon, again, with himself - that, even as, he, is Christ's, so, also are, we.

But we will not boast of things not measured, but according to the measure of the rule which God has given us, to come even to you.

For we stretch not out ourselves beyond measure as though we had not reached unto you. For even unto you have we come with the gospel of Christ,

For when somebody comes along and preaches another Jesus than the one I preached, or you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough!

For I reckon not to have come a whit behind the exceeding overmuch apostles;

and being present with you, and having been in want, I was chargeable to no one, for my lack did the brethren supply -- having come from Macedonia -- and in everything burdenless to you I did keep myself, and will keep.

That I speak, I speak it not after the ways of the Lord: but as it were foolishly, while we are now come to boasting.

Besides things without, that which comes upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

It is not expedient for me, no doubt, to rejoice; Nevertheless I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.

I have become foolish, - ye, compelled me: - I, in fact, ought, by you, to have been commended; for, not a whit, have I come behind the exceeding overmuch apostles, - even if I am nothing:

Behold now, the third time, I am ready to come unto you, and yet will I not be grievous unto you. For I seek not yours, but you. Also the children ought not to lay up for the fathers and mothers: but the fathers and mothers for the children.

I desired Titus to come to you, and with him I sent a brother: did Titus make a gain of you? did we not walk in the same spirit? did we not tread in the same steps?

Are you thinking all this time that I am defending myself to you? It is in the very presence of God and as one who is in union with Christ that I am speaking. And it is all for building you up, beloved, for I am apprehensive that, somehow or other, when I come I shall find you not as I want to find you, and that you may find me not as you want to find me.

For I fear, lest it come to pass, that when I come I shall not find you such as I would: and I shall be found unto you such as I would not. I fear lest there be found among you debate, envying, wrath, strife, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, and discord.

I fear lest when I come again, God bring me low among you, and I be constrained to bewail many of them which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and wantonness which they have committed.

Now come I the third time unto you: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall everything stand."

I told you before, and tell you before, and as I said when I was present with you the second time, so write I now, being absent, to them which in time past have sinned, and to all others: that if I come again, I will not spare;

I hope, however, that ye shall come to know, that, we, fail not in the testing!

and I pray to God that you may not go wrong ??not to prove I am a success, that is not the point, but that you should come right, even if I seemed to be a failure.

This is why I am writing this while far away from you, that when I do come, I may not have to deal harshly with you in accordance with the authority which the Lord has given me, for building you up, not for tearing you down.