who comforts me in every sorrow I have, so that I can comfort people who are in sorrow with the comfort with which I am comforted by God.

If I am in sorrow, it is on behalf of your comfort and salvation; if I am comforted, it is for the comfort that is experienced by you in your patient endurance of the same sort of sufferings that I am enduring too.

For I do not want you to be uninformed about the sorrow that I suffered in Asia, because I was so crushed beyond any power to endure that I was in dire despair of life itself.

For out of great sorrow and distress of heart, yes, while shedding many tears, I wrote you, not to make you sad but to make you realize that my love for you continues running over.

For this slight and momentary sorrow continues to accumulate for me a solid and eternal glory far beyond any comparison,

I have the greatest confidence in you; I speak most highly of you. I am fully comforted; in the face of all my sorrow my cup is running over with joy.

For even after I had gotten to Macedonia, my frail, human nature could find no relief; I was crushed with sorrow at every turn -- fighting without and fears within.

For, although I did cause you sorrow by that letter, I do not now regret it; although I did regret it then. I see that the letter caused you sorrow only for a time.

I am glad of it now, not because you had such sorrow, but because your sorrow led you to repentance, for you took your sorrow in accordance with the will of God, so that you should not suffer any loss at all from me.

For the sorrow that comes in accordance with the will of God results in repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets, but the sorrow the world produces results in death.

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.

He who always supplies the sower with seed and the eater with bread will supply you with seed and multiply it and enlarge the harvest which your deeds of charity yield.