For if I have a liberal share of Christ's sufferings, through Christ I have a liberal share of comfort too.

If I am in trouble, it is to bring you comfort and salvation, and if I am comforted, it is for the sake of the comfort which you experience when you steadfastly endure such sufferings as I also have to bear.

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.

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 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.

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.

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,"

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

This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy.

For I was in great trouble and distress of mind when I wrote you, and I shed many tears as I did it, yet it was not to hurt your feelings, but to make you realize the extraordinary affection I have for you.

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

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

So since I have such a hope, I speak with great frankness,

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

(for I have to guide my steps by faith, not by what is seen)??8 yet I am confident, and I prefer to leave my home in the body and make my home with the Lord.

It is Christ's love that controls me, for I have become convinced that as one has died for all, all have died,

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.

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!

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

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?

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.

I do not mean this as a reflection upon you, for as I said before, you will always have a place in my heart whether I live or die.

I have the greatest confidence in you. I take the greatest pride in you. I am fully comforted. After all my trouble, I am overjoyed.

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.

If I did express some pride in you to him, I have had no reason to be ashamed of it, but just as all I said to you was true, my boasting before Titus has also proved true.

For they have given to the utmost of their ability, as I can bear them witness, and beyond it,

Just as you excel in everything else??aith, expression, knowledge, perfect devotion, and the love we have awakened in you??ou must excel in this generous undertaking too.

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."

I mean to have no one able to find any fault with the way I handle this munificence.

I send with them another brother of ours whose devotion we have often tested in many ways, which is now greater than ever, because of his perfect confidence in you.

But I send the brothers so that our pride in you may not have a fall in this matter, but you may be all ready as I have told them you will;

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.

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:

and am prepared to punish any trace of disobedience when you have made your obedience perfectly clear.

For suppose I do boast a little too much of my authority??hich the Lord gave me to build you up, not to pull you down?? will not have to blush for it.

Even if I have no particular gifts in speaking, I am not wanting in knowledge. Why, I have always made that perfectly clear in my dealings with you.

I repeat, no one should think me a fool, but if you do, show me at least the patience you would show a fool, and let me have my little boast like the others.

Five times I have been given one less than forty lashes, by the Jews.

I have been beaten three times by the Romans, I have been stoned once, I have been shipwrecked three times, a night and a day I have been adrift at sea;

I have to boast. There is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations given me by the Lord.

Three times I have prayed to the Lord about this, begging that it might leave me,

I have been making a fool of myself, but you forced me to do it, when you ought to have been expressing your approval of me. For I am not a bit inferior to your superfine apostles, even if I am nobody!

Here it is the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I do not intend to be a burden to you now; for it is not your money but yourselves that I want; for children are not expected to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

And I will be glad to spend all I have and all I am for your sake. Are you going to love me the less for loving you so intensely?

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.

Those who have kept on in their old sins and all the rest I have warned, and I warn them now while I am still away, as I did on my second visit, that if I come back I will spare nobody??3 since you demand proof that Christ really speaks through me. He is not weak in dealing with you. On the contrary, right among you he exhibits his power.

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.