PAUL an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and brother Timotheus, to the church of God at Corinth as well as to all the saints throughout the whole of Achaia:

grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of tender mercies and the God of all comfort,

who comforts me in all my distress, so that I am able to comfort people who are in any distress by the comfort with which I myself am comforted by God.

in fact I told myself it was the sentence of death. But that was to make me rely not on myself but on the God who raises the dead;

My proud boast is the testimony of my conscience that holiness and godly sincerity, not worldly cunning but the grace of God, have marked my conduct in the outside world and in particular my relations with you.

By the good faith of God, my word to you was not 'yes and no';

for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by us (by myself and Silvanus and Timotheus) was not 'yes and no' ??the divine 'yes' has at last sounded in him,

for in him is the 'yes' that affirms all the promises of God. Hence it is through him that we affirm our 'amen' in worship, to the glory of God.

And it is God who confirms me along with you in Christ, who consecrated me,

I call God to witness against my soul, it was to spare you that I refrained from revisiting Corinth.

Wherever I go, thank God, he makes my life a constant pageant of triumph in Christ, diffusing the perfume of his knowledge everywhere by me.

I live for God as the fragrance of Christ breathed alike on those who are being saved and on those who are perishing,

I am, for I am not like most, adulterating the word of God; like a man of sincerity, like a man of God, I speak the word in Christ before the very presence of God.

you make it obvious that you are a letter of Christ which I have been employed to inscribe, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart.

Such is the confidence I possess through Christ in my service of God.

It is not that I am personally qualified to form any judgment by myself; my qualifications come from God,

Hence, as I hold this ministry by God's mercy to me, I never lose heart in it;

I disown those practices which very shame conceals from view; I do not go about it craftily; I do not falsify the word of God; I state the truth openly and so commend myself to every man's conscience before God.

there the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to prevent them seeing the light thrown by the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.

For God who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," has shone within my heart to illuminate men with the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Christ.

But I possess this treasure in a frail vessel of earth, to show that the transcending power belongs to God, not to myself;

It is all in your interests, so that the more grace abounds, the more thanksgiving may rise and redound to the glory of God.

I know that if this earthly tent of mine is taken down, I get a home from God, made by no human hands, eternal in the heavens.

I am prepared for this change by God, who has given me the Spirit as its pledge and instalment.

and in this confidence I would fain get away from the body and reside with the Lord.

If I 'appeal to the interests of men,' then, it is with the fear of the Lord before my mind. What I am is plain to God without disguise, plain also, I trust, to your own conscience.

'I am beside myself,' am I? Well, that is between myself and God. I am 'sane,' am I? Well, that is in your interests;

It is all the doing of the God who has reconciled me to himself through Christ and has permitted me to be a minister of his reconciliation.

For in Christ God reconciled the world to himself instead of counting men's trespasses against them; and he entrusted me with the message of his reconciliation.

So I am an envoy for Christ, God appealing by me, as it were ??be reconciled to God, I entreat you on behalf of Christ.

For our sakes He made him to be sin who himself knew nothing of sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I appeal to you too, as a worker with God, do not receive the grace of God in vain.

I prove myself at all points a true minister of God, by great endurance, by suffering, by troubles, by calamities,

true words, the power of God; with the weapons of integrity for attack or for defence,

amid honour and dishonour, amid evil report and good report, an 'impostor' but honest,

What compact can there be between God's temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God ??as God has said, I will dwell and move among them, I will be their God and they shall be my people.

As these great promises are ours, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates either flesh or spirit; let us be fully consecrated by reverence for God].

For I got no relief from the strain of things, even when I reached Macedonia; it was trouble at every turn, wrangling all round me, fears in my own mind.

But the God who comforts the dejected comforted me by the arrival of Titus.

but I am glad now ??not glad that you were pained but glad that your pain induced you to repent. For you were pained as God meant you to be pained, and so you got no harm from what I did;

the pain God is allowed to guide ends in a saving repentance never to be regretted, whereas the world's pain ends in death.

So my letter was written to you, not on account of the offender nor for the sake of the injured party, but in order to let you realize before God how seriously you do care for me.

Now, brothers, I have to tell you about the grace God has given to the churches of Macedonia.

They have done more than I expected; they gave themselves to the Lord, to begin with, and then (for so God willed it) they put themselves at my disposal.

If only one is ready to give, according to his means, it is acceptable; he is not asked to give what he has not got.

Thus it is to give and take ??as it is written, He who got much had nothing over, and he who got little had not too little.

Thanks be to God who has inspired Titus with an interest in you equal to my own;

I aim at being above reproach not only from God but also from men.

That is why I have thought it necessary to ask these brothers to go on in advance and get your promised contribution ready in good time. I want it to be forthcoming as a generous gift, not as money wrung out of you.

Everyone is to give what he has made up his mind to give; there is to be no grudging or compulsion about it, for God loves the giver who gives cheerfully.

God is able to bless you with ample means, so that you may always have quite enough for any emergency of your own and ample besides for any kind act to others;

He who furnishes the sower with seed and with bread to eat will supply seed for you and multiply it; he will increase the crop of your charities ??11 you will be enriched on all hands, so that you can be generous on all occasions, and your generosity, of which I am the agent, will make men give thanks to God;

for the service rendered by this fund does more than supply the wants of the saints, it overflows with many a cry of thanks to God.

This service shows what you are, it makes men praise God for the way you have come under the gospel of Christ which you confess, and for the generosity of your contributions to themselves and to all;

they are drawn to you and pray for you, on account of the surpassing grace which God has shown to you.

Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!

the weapons of my warfare are not weapons of the flesh, but divinely strong to demolish fortresses ??5 I demolish theories and any rampart thrown up to resist the knowledge of God, I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ,

and so my boasting never goes beyond the limit ??it is determined by the limits of the sphere marked out for me by God. That sphere stretches to include yourselves;

But perhaps I did wrong in taking a humble place that you might have a high one ??I mean, in preaching the gospel of God to you for nothing!

Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do.

five times have I got forty lashes (all but one) from the Jews,

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed for ever, He knows I am telling the truth!

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. In the body or out of the body? That I do not know: God knows.

I simply know that in the body or out of the body (God knows which)

You think all this time I am defending myself to you? No, I am speaking in Christ before the presence of God, and speaking every word, beloved, in order to build you up.

For I am afraid I may perhaps come and find you are not what I could wish, while you may find I am not what you could wish; I am afraid of finding quarrels, jealousy, temper, rivalry, slanders, gossiping, arrogance, and disorder ??21 afraid that when I come back to you, my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn for many who sinned some time ago and yet have never repented of the impurity, the sexual vice, and the sensuality which they have practised.

For though he was crucified in his weakness, he lives by the power of God; and though I am weak as he was weak, you will find I am alive as he is alive by the power of God.

and I pray to God that you may not go wrong ??not to prove I am a success, that is not the point, but that you should come right, even if I seemed to be a failure.

Now brothers, goodbye; mend your ways, listen to what I have told you, live in harmony, keep the peace; then the God of love and peace will be with you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with you all.