PAUL an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and brother Timotheus, to the church of God at Corinth as well as to all the saints throughout the whole of Achaia:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of tender mercies and the God of all comfort,

who comforts me in all my distress, so that I am able to comfort people who are in any distress by the comfort with which I myself am comforted by God.

Hence my hope for you is well-founded, since I know that as you share the sufferings you share the comfort also.

he rescued me from so terrible a death, he rescues still, and I rely upon him for the hope that he will continue to rescue me.

You don't have to read between the lines of my letters; you can understand them. Yes, I trust you will understand the full meaning of my letters

Such was my intention. Now, have I shown myself 'fickle'? When I propose some plan, do I propose it in a worldly way, ready to mean 'no' as well as 'yes'?

for in him is the 'yes' that affirms all the promises of God. Hence it is through him that we affirm our 'amen' in worship, to the glory of God.

So the very reason I wrote was that I might not come only to be pained by those who ought to give me joy; I relied on you all, I felt sure that my joy would be a joy for everyone of you.

If a certain individual has been causing pain, he has been causing pain not so much to me as to all of you ??at anyrate (for I am not going to overstate the case) to a section of you.

Well, when I reached Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, though I had a wide opportunity in the Lord,

Why, you are my certificate yourselves, written on my heart, recognized and read by all men;

(indeed, in view of the transcendent glory, what was glorious has thus no glory at all);

if what faded had its glory, then what lasts will be invested with far greater glory.

But we all mirror the glory of the Lord with face unveiled, and so we are being transformed into the same likeness as himself, passing from one glory to another ??for this comes of the Lord the Spirit.

sure that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise me too with Jesus and set me at your side in his presence.

It is all in your interests, so that the more grace abounds, the more thanksgiving may rise and redound to the glory of God.

The slight trouble of the passing hour results in a solid glory past all comparison,

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

for we have all to appear without disguise before the tribunal of Christ, each to be requited for what he has done with his body, well or ill.

'I am beside myself,' am I? Well, that is between myself and God. I am 'sane,' am I? Well, that is in your interests;

for I am controlled by the love of Christ, convinced that as One has died for all, then all have died,

and that he died for all in order to have the living live no longer for themselves but for him who died and rose for them.

It is all the doing of the God who has reconciled me to himself through Christ and has permitted me to be a minister of his reconciliation.

(He saith, I have heard you in the time of favour, and helped you on the day of salvation. Well, here is the time of favour, here is the day of salvation.)

I prove myself at all points a true minister of God, by great endurance, by suffering, by troubles, by calamities,

'unknown' but well-known, dying but here I am alive, chastened but not killed,

grieved but always glad, a 'pauper', but the means of wealth to many, without a penny but possessed of all.

[Keep out of all incongruous ties with unbelievers. What have righteousness and iniquity in common, or how can light associate with darkness?

What compact can there be between God's temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God ??as God has said, I will dwell and move among them, I will be their God and they shall be my people.

Therefore come away from them, separate, saith the Lord, touch not what is unclean; then I will receive you,

I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord almighty.

I am not saying this to condemn you. Condemn you? Why, I repeat, you are in my very heart, and you will be there in death and life alike.

I have absolute confidence in you, I am indeed proud of you, you are a perfect comfort to me, I am overflowing with delight, for all the trouble I have to bear.

For I got no relief from the strain of things, even when I reached Macedonia; it was trouble at every turn, wrangling all round me, fears in my own mind.

That is what comforts me. And over and above my personal comfort, I was specially delighted at the delight of Titus. You have all set his mind at rest.

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.

His own heart goes out to you all the more when he remembers how you all obeyed him, and how you received him with reverence and trembling.

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.

But I will tell you what I think about it; it is to your interest to go on with this enterprise, for you started it last year, you were the first not merely to do anything but to want to do anything.

Now, carry it through, so that your readiness to take it up may be equalled by the way you carry it through ??so far as your means allow.

Along with him I am sending that brother whose services to the gospel are praised by all the churches;

So let them have proof of how you can love, and of my reasons for being proud of you; it will be a proof read by the churches.

I know how willing you are, I am proud of it, I have boasted of you to the Macedonians: "Achaia," I tell them, "was all ready last year." And your zeal has been a stimulus to the majority of them.

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,

Mark this: he who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and he who sows generously will reap a generous harvest.

He who furnishes the sower with seed and with bread to eat will supply seed for you and multiply it; he will increase the crop of your charities ??11 you will be enriched on all hands, so that you can be generous on all occasions, and your generosity, of which I am the agent, will make men give thanks to God;

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;

Look at this obvious fact. So-and-so is perfectly sure he 'belongs to Christ'? Well then, let him understand, on second thoughts, that I 'belong to Christ' as much as he does.

Let him understand that I will act when I arrive, as forcibly as I express myself by letter when I am absent.

I do not venture to class myself or to compare myself with certain exalted individuals! They belong to the class of self-praisers; while I limit myself to my own sphere, I compare myself with my own standard,

I do not boast beyond my limits in a sphere where other men have done the work; my hope rather is that the growth of your faith will allow me to enlarge the range of my appointed sphere

You put up with it all right, when some interloper preaches a second Jesus (not the Jesus I preached), or when you are treated to a Spirit different from the Spirit you once received, and to a different gospel from what I gave you! Why not put up with me?

So it is no surprise if his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their doom will answer to their deeds.

I repeat, no one is to think me a fool; but even so, pray bear with me, fool as I am, that I may have my little boast as well as others!

Since many boast on the score of the flesh, I will do the same.)

Ministers of Christ? yes perhaps, but not as much as I am (I am mad to talk like this!), with all my labours, with all my lashes, with all my time in prison ??a record longer far than theirs. I have been often at the point of death;

five times have I got forty lashes (all but one) from the Jews,

three times I have been beaten by the Romans, once pelted with stones, three times shipwrecked, adrift at sea for a whole night and day;

I have been often on my travels, I have been in danger from rivers and robbers, in danger from Jews and Gentiles, through dangers of town and of desert, through dangers on the sea, through dangers among false brothers ??27 through labour and hardship, through many a sleepless night, through hunger and thirst, starving many a time, cold and ill-clad, and all the rest of it.

And then there is the pressing business of each day, the care of all the churches.