If we meet with trouble, it is for the sake of your consolation and salvation; and, if we find consolation, it is for the sake of the consolation that you will experience when you are called to endure the very sufferings that we ourselves are enduring;

Indeed, we had the presentiment that we must die, so that we might rely, not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

With this conviction in my mind, I planned to come to see you first, so that your pleasure might be doubled--

So I wrote as I did, for fear that, if I had come, I should have been pained by those who ought to have made me glad; for I felt sure that it was true of you all that my joy was in every case yours also.

I had this further object, also, in what I wrote--to ascertain whether you might be relied upon to be obedient in everything.

Our fitness comes from God, who himself made us fit to be ministers of a New Covenant, of which the substance is, not a written Law, but a Spirit. For the written Law means Death, but the Spirit gives Life.

For we know that if our tent--that earthly body which is now our home--is taken down, we have a house of God's building, a home not made by hands, imperishable, in Heaven.

Him who never knew sin God made to be Sin, on our behalf; so that we, through union with him, might become the Righteousness of God.

In addition to the encouragement that this gave us, we were made far happier still by the happiness of Titus for his heart has been cheered by you all.

For you do not forget the loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ--how that for your sakes, although he was rich, he became poor, so that you also might become rich through his poverty.

We are also sending with them another of our Brothers, whose earnestness we have many a time proved in many ways, and whom we now find made even more earnest by his great confidence in you.

I am jealous over you with the jealousy of God. For I betrothed you to one husband, that I might present you to the Christ a pure bride.

Though I am no trained orator, yet I am not without knowledge; indeed we made this perfectly clear to you in every way.

Perhaps you say that I did wrong in humbling myself that you might be exalted--I mean because I told you God's Good News without payment.

I robbed other churches by taking pay from them, so that I might serve you!

When I speak thus, I am not speaking as the Master would, but as a fool might, in boasting so confidently.

About this I three times entreated the Lord, praying that it might leave me.

Remember, this is the third time that I have made every preparation to come to see you, and I shall refuse to be a burden to you; I want, not your money, but you. It is not the duty of children to put by for their parents, but of parents to put by for their children.