Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth, and all God's people all over Greece;

He comforts me in all my trouble, so that I can comfort people who are in any trouble with the comfort with which I myself am comforted by God.

My hopes for you are unshaken. For I know that just as surely as you share my sufferings, just so surely you will share my comfort.

For I do not want you, brothers, to misunderstand the distress that I experienced in Asia, for I was so utterly and unendurably crushed, that I actually despaired of life itself.

Why, I felt in my heart that the end must be death. That was to keep me from relying on myself instead of on God, who can even raise the dead.

So deadly was the peril from which he saved me, as he will save me again! It is on him that I have set my hope that he will save me again.

You must help me by your prayers, so that many will give thanks to God on my behalf for the blessing granted me in answer to many prayers.

For my boast is what my conscience tells me, that my relations to the world and still more to you have been marked by pure motives and godly sincerity, not by worldly shrewdness but by the favor of God.

For what I am writing to you is only what you can read and understand, and I hope that you will understand it fully,

as some of you have come to understand me, and that you will understand that you have a right to be proud of me, as I have of you, on the Day of our Lord Jesus.

It was because I was sure of this that I wanted to come to see you before going anywhere else, to give you a double pleasure;

Was it vacillating of me to want to do that? Do I make my plans like a worldly man, ready to say "Yes" and "No" in the same breath?

for to all the promises of God he supplies the "Yes" that confirms them. That is why we utter the "Amen" through him, when we give glory to God.

But upon my soul I call God to witness that it is simply to spare you that I have stayed away from Corinth.

Not that we are the masters of you and your faith; we are working with you to make you happy, for in your faith you stand firm enough.

This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy.

For that individual, this censure by the majority of you is punishment enough,

For that is why I wrote you??o find out how you would stand the test, and see if you would obey me absolutely.

You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by me, written not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God, and not on tablets of stone, but on the human heart.

Such is the confidence that I have through Christ in my relations to God.

Not that I am of myself qualified to claim anything as originating with me. My qualification is from God,

But if the religion of death, carved in letters of stone, was ushered in with such splendor, so that the Israelites could not look at Moses' face on account of the brightness that was fading from it,

Their minds were dulled. For to this day, that same veil remains unlifted, when they read the old agreement, for only through union with Christ is it removed.

I disown disgraceful, underhanded ways. I refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's message. It is by the open statement of the truth that I would commend myself to every human conscience in the sight of God.

For it is not myself but Christ Jesus that I am proclaiming as Lord; I am only a slave of yours for Jesus' sake.

For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in my heart, to give me the light of the knowledge of God's glory, that is on the face of Christ.

But I have this treasure in a mere ear then jar, to show that its amazing power belongs to God and not to me.

never free from the danger of being put to death like Jesus, so that in my body the life of Jesus also may be seen.

For every day I live I am being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be visible in my mortal nature.

So it is death that operates in my case, but life that operates in yours.

sure that he who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise me also like Jesus, and bring me side by side with you into his presence.

For it is all for your benefit, in order that as God's favor reaches greater and greater numbers, it may result in more and more thanksgiving in praise of God.

For I know that if this earthly tent that I live in is taken down, God will provide me a building in heaven to live in, not built by human hands but eternal.

For I who am still in my tent sigh with anxiety, because I do not want to be stripped of it, but to put on the other over it, so that what is only mortal may be absorbed in life.

So I am confident. I know well that as long as I am at home in the body I am away from the Lord

It is with this knowledge of what the fear of the Lord means that I appeal to men. My true character is perfectly plain to God, and I hope to your consciences too.

It is Christ's love that controls me, for I have become convinced that as one has died for all, all have died,

and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.

So from that time on, I have estimated nobody at what he seemed to be outwardly; even though I once estimated Christ in that way, I no longer do so.

It is for Christ, therefore, that I am an envoy, seeing that God makes his appeal through me. On Christ's behalf I beg you to be reconciled to God.

He made him who knew nothing of sin to be sin, for our sake, so that through union with him we might become God's uprightness.

I put no obstacles in anyone's path, so that no fault may be found with my work.

It is not that I am cramping you, it is your own affections.

Therefore, "Come out from them, And separate from them, says the Lord, And touch nothing that is unclean. Then I will welcome you,

So since we have promises like these, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves of everything that can defile body or spirit, and by reverence for God make our consecration complete.

For even if I did hurt your feelings with that letter, I cannot regret it; even if I did regret it, when I saw that the letter had hurt your feelings perhaps for a while,

I am glad of it now; not because you had your feelings hurt, but because having them hurt led you to repent, for you took it as God meant you to do, so that you should not lose anything at all through me.

For the pain that God approves results in a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets; but the world's pain results in death.

See how earnest this God-given pain has made you! how eager to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how eager to see me, how zealous, how avenging! At every point you have proved that you are clear of this matter.

That is why I am so comforted. With all my own comfort, I was still more overjoyed at the gladness of Titus, for his mind has been set at rest by you all.

I am glad that I can feel perfect confidence in you.

You know how gracious the Lord Jesus Christ was. Though he was rich, he became poor for your sake, in order that by his poverty you might become rich.

But I will tell you what I think about it. For this is the best way to deal with you, for you were the first not only to do anything about this, but to want to do anything, and that was last year.

Now finish doing it, so that your readiness to undertake it may be equaled by the way you finish it up, as well as your means permit.

but to equalize the burden, and in the present situation to have your plenty make up for what they need, so that some day their plenty may make up for what you need, and so things may be made equal??15 as the Scripture says, "The man who got much did not have too much, and the man who got little did not have too little."

Thank God, he puts the same devotion to you that I feel into Titus' heart,

for I know how willing you are to help in it; I boast of you for it to the people in Macedonia, telling them that Greece has been ready since last year, and your enthusiasm has been a stimulus to most of them.

But I send the brothers so that our pride in you may not have a fall in this matter, but you may be all ready as I have told them you will;

for if some people from Macedonia come with me, and find that you are not ready, it will humiliate me??o say nothing of you??or having expressed such confidence.

God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance so that you will always have enough for every situation, and ample means for every good enterprise:

You will grow rich in every way, so that through me you can show perfect liberality that will make men thank God for it.

I destroy arguments and every obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God, and I take captive every thought and make it obey Christ,

You look at things externally. If anyone is sure he belongs to Christ, let him think again and understand that I belong to Christ just as much as he.

Such people had better understand that when I arrive and take action I will do just as I say I will in my letters when I am far away.

I do not indulge in extravagant boasts over work done by others, but I do hope that as your faith increases, my influence may be immensely enlarged through you,

But I am afraid that just as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts will be led astray from their single-hearted fidelity to Christ.

For I think that I am not in the least inferior to these superfine apostles of yours.

Even if I have no particular gifts in speaking, I am not wanting in knowledge. Why, I have always made that perfectly clear in my dealings with you.

Do you think that I did wrong in degrading myself to uplift you, because I preached God's good news to you without any compensation?

I robbed other churches, letting them pay me so that I could work for you!

By the truth of Christ that is in me, this boast of mine shall not be silenced anywhere in Greece.

And I shall go on doing as I do, so as to cut the ground from under those who want to make out that in their boasted apostleship they work on the same terms that I do.

To my shame I must admit that I was too weak for that sort of thing. But whatever anyone else dares to boast of?? am playing the part of a fool?? will dare to boast of too.

And besides everything else, the thing that burdens me every day is my anxiety about all the churches.

If there must be boasting, I will boast of the things that show my weakness!

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, he who is forever blessed, knows that I am telling the truth.

And I know that this man?? do not know whether it was in the body or out of it, God knows??4 was caught up into Paradise, and heard things that must not be told, which no human being can repeat.

Three times I have prayed to the Lord about this, begging that it might leave me,

and he said to me, "My favor is enough for you, for only where there is weakness is perfect strength developed." So I am perfectly willing to boast of all my weakness, so that the strength of Christ may shelter me.

That is why I am pleased with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties, when they are endured for Christ's sake, for it is when I am weak that I am strong.

The signs that mark a true apostle were most patiently shown when I was among you, in signs, wonders, and marvels.

For what is there in which the other churches had the better of you, except in the fact that I would not permit myself to be a burden to you? You must forgive me that wrong!

Here it is the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I do not intend to be a burden to you now; for it is not your money but yourselves that I want; for children are not expected to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

But granting that I did not burden you myself, I was clever about it, you say, and took you in by a trick.

Yet did I make anything out of you by anybody that I sent to you?

Have you been supposing all along that it is before you I have been defending myself? It is in the sight of God and as a follower of Christ that I have been speaking. But it is all to do you good, dear friends,

for I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I want to find you, and that you may find me not as you want to find me. I am afraid that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, bad feeling, rivalry, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder,

and that when I come back my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn over many who have kept on in their old sins and have never repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality in which they have indulged.

Those who have kept on in their old sins and all the rest I have warned, and I warn them now while I am still away, as I did on my second visit, that if I come back I will spare nobody??3 since you demand proof that Christ really speaks through me. He is not weak in dealing with you. On the contrary, right among you he exhibits his power.

Even if he was crucified through weakness, by the power of God he is alive. For we are weak as he was, but you will find that by the power of God we will be alive as he is.

It is yourselves you must test, to see whether you are holding to the faith. It is yourselves you must examine. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is within you? Unless you fail to stand the test!

I hope you will see that I do not fail to stand it.

But I pray to God that you may not do wrong??ot to prove me equal to the test, but that you should do right even if I fail to stand it.

I am glad to be weak, if you are strong! That is what I pray for??he perfecting of your characters.

That is why I write this while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be harsh in my use of the authority the Lord has given me, for it was to build you up, not to pull you down.