And being also co-laborers we exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain,??2 for he says, In an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you; behold, now is an acceptable time, behold, now is a day of salvation,??3 giving no offense in any thing, that the ministry may not be blamed,

Go out therefore from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the impure; and I will receive you,

and will be to you a father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

I say this not to condemn you, for I have said before that you are in our hearts both to die and live together.

lest if the Macedonians should come with me and find you unprepared, we, not to say you, should be ashamed of this confidence.

For the epistles, say they, are weighty and powerful, but the bodily presence is weak and speech contemptible.

Again, I say let no one think me to be foolish; but if otherwise, even as a foolish man bear with me that I may boast a little.

What I say, I do not say according to the Lord, but as it were in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.