For out of much affliction and distress of heart, I wrote to you with many tears: not that you might be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have more abundantly for you.

so that, on the other hand, you should rather forgive and comfort him, lest such a one should be swallowed up in too much sorrow.

For if the ministering of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministering of righteousness surpass in glory.

For if that which was to come to an end was glorious, much more that which is to remain is glorious.

but in all things we commend ourselves as the ministers of God, in much suffering, in afflictions, in distresses, in straits,

beseeching us, with much entreaty, that they might give, and take part in the ministering to the saints;

as it is written: He that gathered much had nothing over; and he that gathered little did not lack.

And we have sent with them our brother, whom we have often proved to be diligent in many things, but now much more diligent on account of the strong confidence which he has in you.

Therefore, I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go before to you, and make ready beforehand your bounty, which has been so much talked of before, that this might be ready as a bounty, and not as a gift extorted from you.

And, lest I should be too much exalted by the excellence of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I might not be too much exalted.