Let me have your cooperation in prayer, so that many a soul may render thanks to him on my behalf for the boon which many have been the means of him bestowing on myself.

My proud boast is the testimony of my conscience that holiness and godly sincerity, not worldly cunning but the grace of God, have marked my conduct in the outside world and in particular my relations with you.

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

as you have partly understood the meaning of my life, namely that I am your source of pride (as you are mine) on the Day of our Lord Jesus.

Relying on this I meant to visit you first, to let you have a double delight;

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'?

(Not that we lord it over your faith ??no, we co-operate for your joy: you have a standing of your own in the faith.)

you make it obvious that you are a letter of Christ which I have been employed to inscribe, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart.

I do sigh within this tent of mine with heavy anxiety ??not that I want to be stripped, no, but to be under the cover of the other, to have my mortal element absorbed by life.

(for I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing him):

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.

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.

(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.)

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

Make a place for me in your hearts; I have wronged no one, ruined no one, taken advantage of no one.

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.

See what this pain divine has done for you, how serious it has made you, how keen to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how eager for me, how determined, how relentless! You have shown in every way that you were honest in the business.

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.

I am glad to have full confidence in you.

Now, brothers, I have to tell you about the grace God has given to the churches of Macedonia.

Amid a severe ordeal of trouble, their overflowing joy and their deep poverty together have poured out a flood of rich generosity;

I can testify that up to their means, aye and beyond their means, they have given ??4 begging me of their own accord, most urgently, for the favour of contributing to the support of the saints.

They have done more than I expected; they gave themselves to the Lord, to begin with, and then (for so God willed it) they put themselves at my disposal.

Along with them I am also sending our brother: I have had ample proof of his keen interest on many occasions, and it is specially keen on this occasion, as he has absolute confidence in you.

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,

That is why I have thought it necessary to ask these brothers to go on in advance and get your promised contribution ready in good time. I want it to be forthcoming as a generous gift, not as money wrung out of you.

God is able to bless you with ample means, so that you may always have quite enough for any emergency of your own and ample besides for any kind act to others;

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;

I beg of you that when I do come I may not have to speak out and be peremptory; but my mind is made up to tackle certain people who have made up their minds that I move on the low level of the flesh.

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

But perhaps I did wrong in taking a humble place that you might have a high one ??I mean, in preaching the gospel of God to you for nothing!

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!

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.

(If I did care to boast of other things, I would be no 'fool,' for I would have a true tale to tell; however, I abstain from that ??I want no one to take me for more than he can see in me or make out from me.)

My wealth of visions might have puffed me up, so I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to rack me and keep me from being puffed up;

but he told me, "It is enough for you to have my grace: it is in weakness that [my] power is fully felt." So I am proud to boast of all my weakness, and thus to have the power of Christ resting on my life.

Here am I all ready to pay you my third visit. And I will not be a burden to you; I want yourselves and not your money. Children have not to put money by for their parents; that is what parents do for their children.

For I am afraid I may perhaps come and find you are not what I could wish, while you may find I am not what you could wish; I am afraid of finding quarrels, jealousy, temper, rivalry, slanders, gossiping, arrogance, and disorder ??21 afraid that when I come back to you, my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn for many who sinned some time ago and yet have never repented of the impurity, the sexual vice, and the sensuality which they have practised.

That will prove to you that I am indeed a spokesman of Christ. It is no weak Christ you have to do with, but a Christ of power.

I am writing thus to you in absence, so that when I do come I may not have to deal sharply with you; I have the Lord's authority for that, but he gave it to me for building you up, not for demolishing you.

Now brothers, goodbye; mend your ways, listen to what I have told you, live in harmony, keep the peace; then the God of love and peace will be with you.