For we wish you not to be ignorant, brethren, of our pressure having been to us in Asia, that we were exceedingly loaded, above strength, so that we were in utter perplexity even to live:

And we ourselves have had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have trusted in ourselves, but in God raising the dead:

For our boasting is this, the testimony of our consciousness, that in simplicity and purity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we turned back in the world, and more eminently to you.

And God faithful, for our word to you was not yea or nay.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who proclaimed in you by us, by me, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but was yea in him.

Not that we are masters of your faith, but we are aiders of your joy: for ye have stood in the faith.

And I determined this to myself, not to come to you again in sadness.

For out of much pressure and anxiety of heart I wrote to you through many tears; not that ye should be 'grieved, but that ye might know the love I have more abundantly towards you.

And if any have grieved, he has not grieved me, but by part; that I might not overload you all.

That we might not be taken advantage of by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his inventions.

I have had no relaxation to my spirit, in my not finding Titus my brother: but having taken leave of them, I went out to Macedonia.

For we are not as the many adulterating the word of God: but as of purity, but as of God, before the face of God speak we in Christ.

Begin we again to recommend ourselves or need we not, as some; recommendatory epistles to you, or recommendatory from you?

Made manifest that ye are the epistle of Christ served by us, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables made of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to reckon anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency of God;

Who rendered as fitting servants of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter kills, and the Spirit makes alive.

And if the service of death, in letters imprinted in stones, was in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently to the face of Moses for the glory of his face; being left unemployed

How shall not rather the service of the Spirit be in glory?

For also that having been glorified has not been glorified in this part, for sake of the glory excelling.

And not as Moses put a veil upon his face, that the sons of Israel should not look intently to the end of that left unemployed:

But their minds were hardened: for until this day the same veil upon the reading of the old covenant. remains not uncovered;for in Christ it is left unemployed.

For this, having this service, as we were compassionated, we lose not courage;

But have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craft, neither adulterating the word of God; but by manifestation of the truth recommending ourselves to every consciousness of man before God.

In whom the God of this world blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that the enlightening of the good news of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, does not enlighten them.

For we proclaim not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus.

And we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the eminence of power be of God, and not of us.

Being pressed in every thing, but not straightened; being at a loss, but not utterly perplexed;

Being driven out, but not forsaken; being cast down, but not destroyed;

Wherefore we lose not courage; but if also our man without is destroyed, but he within is renewed day and day.

We looking not at things seen, but at things not seen: for things seen, temporary; and things not seen, eternal

For we know that if our earthly house of the tent were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

If also being even clothed we shall not be found naked.

For also being in the tent we groan, being loaded: since we wish not to be unclothed, but to be clothed, that the mortal should be swallowed up of life.

(For we walk by faith, and not by external appearance:)

For not again do we recommend ourselves to you, but giving you occasion for boasting over us, that ye might have for them boasting in face, and not in heart.

For as God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their faults; and having set in us the word of reconciliation.

For him not knowing sin, he made sin for us; that we might be the justice of God in him.

Giving no offence in any thing, that the service be not blamed:

As being ignorant, and knowing; as dying, and, behold, we live; as being disciplined, and not killed;

Ye are not contracted in us, but ye are contracted in your bowels.

Be not unequally yoked together with the unbelieving: for what participation to justice and iniquity and what communion to light with darkness?

Therefore come out from the midst of them, and be separated, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean; and I will receive you.

I speak not to condemnation: for I have said before, ye are in our hearts to die together, and live together.

And not only in his arrival, but also in the comfort which he was comforted in you, announcing to us your anxious desire, your lamentations, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced the more.

For if I also grieved you in the epistle, I regret not, and if I did regret: for I see that that epistle, if also for a time, grieved you.

Now I rejoice, not that ye were grieved, but that ye were grieved to repentance: for ye were grieved according to God, that ye be injured in nothing by us.

For grief according to God works repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but grief of the world works death.

Wherefore, if I also wrote to you, not for him having been unjust, for him having suffered injustice, but that your care for us might be made manifest to you before God.

For if I have boasted anything to him of you, I was not ashamed; but as we spake all things to you in truth, so also was our boasting over Titus the truth.

And not as we hoped, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and to us by the will of God.

I speak not according to command, but by care of others, trying also the purity of your love.

For if a forwardness lie before, according as any has, it is acceptable, not as he has not.

For not that ease to others, and pressure to you:

As has been written, He to whom much, was not in excess; and he to whom little, was not diminished.

And not only, but also the hand stretched out by the churches for our fellow-traveller with this grace, served by us to the glory of the same Lord, and to your forwardness:

Providing good things beforehand, not only before the Lord, but also before men.

Lest if in some way the Macedonians come with me, and find you unprepared, we should be ashamed, (that we should not say, ye) in this principle of boasting.

Therefore I thought necessary to beseech the brethren that they go before to you, and prepare beforehand your praise, having been proclaimed beforehand, this same to be prepared, so as praise, and not as covetousness.

Each as he chooses in the heart; not of grief, or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver.

For the service of this office is not only filling up the wants of the saints, but also abounding through many thanks to God;

And I pray, being present, not to be bold with the confidence which I reckon to encounter against certain, reckoning us as walking about according to the flesh.

For walking in the flesh, we war not after the flesh:

(For the weapons of our warfare not fleshly, but powerful to God to the taking down of fortified places;)

For if I also boast something more abundantly of our power, which the Lord gave us for the building up, and not for your taking down, I shall not be ashamed:

For we dare not appear or join ourselves to certain of them recommending themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and joining themselves to themselves, do not understand.

And we boast not of things immeasurable, but according to the measure of the rule which the God of measure divided to us, to reach even also to you.

For not as reaching to you we stretch beyond ourselves: for also even to you we came before in the good news of Christ:

Not boasting in things immeasurable, in the toils of others; and having hope, your faith being increased, to be enlarged in you according to our rule for abundance,

To announce the good hews in things beyond you, not in another's rule to boast for things prepared.

For not he recommending himself, this is acceptable, but whom the Lord recommends.

For if he coming proclaim another Jesus, which I proclaimed not, or ye receive another spirit, which ye received not, or other good news, which ye received not, ye have held up well.

And, if also ignorant in the word, but not in knowledge; but in every thing, we having been made manifest in all for you.

And being present with you, and having wanted, I acted not with negligence to any: (for the brethren having come from Macedonia filled up still more my want:) and I kept myself in every thing not burdensome to you, and I will keep.

The truth of Christ is in me, for this boasting shall not be shut up in me in the regions of Achaia.

Wherefore? because I love you not? God knows.

And what I do, and I will do, that I shall not cut off the occasion of those wishing the occasion; that in what they boast, they be found as also we.

And not wonderful; for Satan himself is transformed into a messenger of light.

Again I say, lest any one should think me to be mad; and if not so indeed, as mad do ye receive me that I might also boast myself some little.

What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as in madness, in this first principle of boasting.

Thrice was I scourged with rods, once was I stoned, thrice suffered I shipwreck, I have made a night and day in the deep;

Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I am not inflamed

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, he being praised forever, that I lie not.

Indeed it is not profitable to me to boast. For I will come to visions and Revelation of the Lord.

I knew a man in Christ before fourteen years, (whether in the body, I know not; whether out of the body, I know not: God knows;) such a one having been carried off even to the third heaven.

And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, whether out of the body, I know not: God knows;)

That he was carried off into paradise, and heard words not to be told, which it was not permitted man to speak.

Of such a one will I boast: and of myself I will not boast, except in my weakness.

For if I be willing to boast, I shall not be mad; for the truth will I say: and I spare, lest any reckon for me above what he sees me, or what he hears of me.

I have been mad boasting; ye forced me: for I ought to have been recommended by you: for I was not greatly inferior to the sent, if also I am nothing.

For what is it which ye were inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself acted not with negligence to you? favor me for this injustice.

Behold, I have prepared to come to you the third time; and I will not act with negligence to you: for I seek not your things, but you: for children ought not to treasure up for parents, but parents for children.

And "let it be, I overloaded you not: but being dexterous, I took you by contrivance.

Not any of whom I have sent to you have I by him taken advantage of you.

I called for Titus, and sent with a brother. Has Titus taken advantage of you? walked we not in the same spirit? not in the same steps??

For I am afraid, lest somehow, having come, I find you not such; as I will, and I find you such as ye wish not: lest somehow, strifes, jealousies, wraths, intrigues, calumnies, whisperings, inflations, derangements:

Lest, coming again, my God should humble me with you, and I shall mourn for many of them having sinned before, and not having repented for uncleanness, and fornication, and licentiousness which they committed.

I have said before, and say beforehand, as being present the second; and being away now I write to them having sinned before, and to all the rest, that, if I should come again, I will not spare:

Try yourselves, if ye are in the faith; prove yourselves. Or know ye not yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless ye are not tried?

And I hope that ye shall know that we are not untried.

And I pray to God that ye do nothing evil; not that we appear tried, but that ye do good, and we be as untried.