For see what this very sorrow, suffered in accordance with the will of God, has done for you! How earnest it has made you, how concerned to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how much it made you long to see me, how loyal to me, how determined to punish the offender! At every point you have cleared yourselves in the matter.

Therefore, though I wrote to you, it was not to punish the offender, nor to secure justice for him who had suffered the wrong, but it was chiefly in order that your earnest feeling on our behalf might become manifest to yourselves in the sight of God.

and I am fully prepared to punish every act of disobedience, when once your submission has been put beyond question.

now I pray God that I may not punish you; not that I may show you my proofs to your cost, but that by your acting honestly, I may be as if I had no proofs: