I wrote to you out of great sorrow and anguish of heart along with many tears not to make you sad but to let you know how much love I have for you.

For he says, "At the right time I heard you, and on a day of salvation I helped you." Listen, now is really the "right time"! Now is the "day of salvation"!

in beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger;

Now I am happy, not because you had such sorrow, but because your sorrow led you to repent. For you were sorry in a godly way, and so you were not hurt by us in any way.

So, even though I wrote to you, it wasn't because of the man who did the wrong or because of the man who was hurt. Instead, I wrote to you so that your devotion to us might be made perfectly clear to you before God.

But thanks be to God, who placed in the heart of Titus the same dedication to you that I have.

Each of you must give what you have decided in your heart, not with regret or under compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver.

was snatched away to Paradise and heard things that cannot be expressed in words, things that no human being has a right even to mention.