He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows.

If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in your endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.

And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.

For we don’t want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in Asia: we were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life.

He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and He will deliver us. We have put our hope in Him that He will deliver us again

while you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.

For this is our confidence: The testimony of our conscience is that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with God-given sincerity and purity, not by fleshly wisdom but by God’s grace.

as you have partially understood us—that we are your reason for pride, as you are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

As God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes and no.”

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—did not become “Yes and no”; on the contrary, a final “Yes” has come in Him.

For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in Him. Therefore, the “Amen” is also spoken through Him by us for God’s glory.

Now it is God who strengthens us, with you, in Christ and has anointed us.

He has also sealed us and given us the Spirit as a down payment in our hearts.

I call on God as a witness, on my life, that it was to spare you that I did not come to Corinth.

I wrote this very thing so that when I came I wouldn’t have pain from those who ought to give me joy, because I am confident about all of you that my joy will also be yours.

The punishment inflicted by the majority is sufficient for that person.

If you forgive anyone, I do too. For what I have forgiven—if I have forgiven anything—it is for you in the presence of Christ.

But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.

To some we are an aroma of death leading to death, but to others, an aroma of life leading to life. And who is competent for this?

For we are not like the many who market God’s message for profit. On the contrary, we speak with sincerity in Christ, as from God and before God.

It is clear that you are Christ’s letter, produced by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God—not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.

It is not that we are competent in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our competence is from God.

He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit produces life.

In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it.

Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness.

but their minds were closed. For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ.

Even to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts,

but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.