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.

So deadly was the peril from which he saved me, as he will save me again! It is on him that I have set my hope that he will save me again.

I was going to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and then to come back to you from Macedonia and have you see me off for Judea.

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

to keep Satan from getting the better of us. For we know what he is after.

Am I falling into self-recommendation again? Do I, like some people, need letters of recommendation to you or from you?

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.

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

But if the religion of death, carved in letters of stone, was ushered in with such splendor, so that the Israelites could not look at Moses' face on account of the brightness that was fading from it,

not like Moses, who used to wear a veil over his face, to keep the Israelites from gazing at the fading of the splendor from it.

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.

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.

never free from the danger of being put to death like Jesus, so that in my body the life of Jesus also may be seen.

sure that he who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise me also like Jesus, and bring me side by side with you into his presence.

So I am confident. I know well that as long as I am at home in the body I am away from the Lord

So whether I am at home or away from it, it is my ambition to please him.

So from that time on, I have estimated nobody at what he seemed to be outwardly; even though I once estimated Christ in that way, I no longer do so.

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.

I have kept nothing back from you, men of Corinth; I have opened my heart to you.

Therefore, "Come out from them, And separate from them, says the Lord, And touch nothing that is unclean. Then I will welcome you,

for if some people from Macedonia come with me, and find that you are not ready, it will humiliate me??o say nothing of you??or having expressed such confidence.

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.

I wish you would put up with a little folly from me. Do put up with it!

But I am afraid that just as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts will be led astray from their single-hearted fidelity to 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!

And when I was with you and wanted money, I did not burden any of you, for when the brothers came from Macedonia they supplied what I needed. So I kept myself, as I shall always do, from being a burden to you in any way.

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.

If they are Hebrews, so am I! If they are Israelites, so am I! If they are descended from Abraham, so am I!

with my frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the heathen, danger in the city, danger in the desert, danger at sea, danger from false brothers,

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

Though if I do choose to boast, I will not be such a fool, for I will only be telling the truth. But I will refrain from it, for I do not want anyone to be influenced by the wonderful character of these revelations to think more of me than is justified by my words or conduct.

So to keep me from being too much elated a bitter physical affliction was sent to me, a very messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too much elated.

That is why I write this while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be harsh in my use of the authority the Lord has given me, for it was to build you up, not to pull you down.