who stamped me with his seal and gave me the Spirit as a pledge in my heart.

For I wrote you in sore distress and misery of heart, with many a tear ??not to pain you but to convince you of my love, my special love for you.

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

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.

Yes, down to this day, whenever Moses is read aloud, the veil rests on their heart;

Hence, as I hold this ministry by God's mercy to me, I never lose heart in it;

For God who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," has shone within my heart to illuminate men with the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Christ.

Hence I never lose heart; though my outward man decays, my inner man is renewed day after day.

(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.)

O Corinthians, I am keeping nothing back from you; my heart is wide open for you.

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.

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.

Who is weak, and I do not feel his weakness? Whose faith is hurt, and I am not aglow with indignation?

this man was caught up to paradise and heard sacred secrets which no human lips can repeat.