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

Yes, and by more than his arrival, by the comfort which you had been to him; for he gave me such a report of how you longed for me, how sorry you were, and how eagerly you took my part, that it added to my delight.

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.

So my letter was written to you, not on account of the offender nor for the sake of the injured party, but in order to let you realize before God how seriously you do care for me.

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.

I am not issuing any orders, only using the zeal of others to prove how sterling your own love is.

(You know how gracious our Lord Jesus Christ was; rich though he was, he became poor for the sake of you, that by his poverty you might be rich.)

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.