Great is my faith in you; great is my cheerful assurance in you. I am filled with comfort; in spite of all my troubles, my heart is overflowing with joy.

Let such a man assure himself that my actions, when I am present, will be just like my words in my letters when I am absent.

My hope for you is firm; for I know that as you are comrades in my sufferings, so also are you comrades in my comfort.

For this is my proud boast, the testimony of my conscience, that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, not in worldly wisdom, but in the grace of God, that I have conducted myself in the world, and above all in my relations with you.