Who comforting us upon all our pressure, that we may be able to comfort them in every pressure, by the comfort by which we ourselves are comforted by God.

And our hope firm for you, knowing, that as ye are participators of the sufferings, so also of the comfort.

For we wish you not to be ignorant, brethren, of our pressure having been to us in Asia, that we were exceedingly loaded, above strength, so that we were in utter perplexity even to live:

And we ourselves have had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have trusted in ourselves, but in God raising the dead:

Who saved us from so great a death, and does save: in whom we have hoped also that he will yet save;

And ye serving together for us in prayer, that of many faces, the favor to us by many thanks be returned by us.

For our boasting is this, the testimony of our consciousness, that in simplicity and purity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we turned back in the world, and more eminently to you.

For we write no others to you, but what ye either know or also observe; and I hope that also even to the end ye will observe;

As also ye observed us by part, that we are your boast, as also ye ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

And in this confidence I wished to come to you before, that ye might have a second grace;

Therefore I resolved this, much less did I use levity: or what I resolve, do I resolve according to the flesh, that there be with me yea, yea, and nay, nay

And I call upon God a witness upon my soul, that, sparing you, I came no more to Corinth.

Not that we are masters of your faith, but we are aiders of your joy: for ye have stood in the faith.

And I wrote this same to you lest, coming, I should have sadness from whom I ought to rejoice, trusting to you all, that mine is the joy of you all.

For out of much pressure and anxiety of heart I wrote to you through many tears; not that ye should be 'grieved, but that ye might know the love I have more abundantly towards you.

And if any have grieved, he has not grieved me, but by part; that I might not overload you all.

So that on the contrary ye should rather show kindness, and console, lest perhaps such be swallowed down with more abundant sadness.

For, for this I also wrote, that I might know the proof of you, if ye are obedient for all things.

That we might not be taken advantage of by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his inventions.

Made manifest that ye are the epistle of Christ served by us, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables made of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to reckon anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency of God;

And if the service of death, in letters imprinted in stones, was in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently to the face of Moses for the glory of his face; being left unemployed

For also that having been glorified has not been glorified in this part, for sake of the glory excelling.

For if that left unemployed by glory, much more that remaining in glory.

And not as Moses put a veil upon his face, that the sons of Israel should not look intently to the end of that left unemployed:

In whom the God of this world blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that the enlightening of the good news of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, does not enlighten them.

And we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the eminence of power be of God, and not of us.

Always bearing about in the body the death of the Lord Jesus, that also the life of Jesus be made manifest in our body.

For we, the living, are always delivered to death for Jesus, that also the life of Jesus be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

So that death is truly energetic in us, and life in you.

And having the same spirit of faith, according to that written, I believed, therefore I spake: and we believe, and therefore we speak;

Knowing that he having raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us by Jesus, and present us with you.

For all things for you, that grace, having abounded by the many, might abound in thanksgiving to the glory of God.

For we know that if our earthly house of the tent were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For also being in the tent we groan, being loaded: since we wish not to be unclothed, but to be clothed, that the mortal should be swallowed up of life.

Therefore being always confident, and knowing that, being at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; that each might receive the things for the body, for what he did, good or bad.

For not again do we recommend ourselves to you, but giving you occasion for boasting over us, that ye might have for them boasting in face, and not in heart.

For the love of Christ holds us together; having judged this, that if one died for all, then all dead:

And he died for all, that the living no more live to themselves, but o him having died for them, and having risen.

So that we from now know none according to the flesh: and if also we have known Christ according to the:flesh, but now we know no more.

So that if any in Christ, a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all have become new.

For him not knowing sin, he made sin for us; that we might be the justice of God in him.

Giving no offence in any thing, that the service be not blamed:

And what agreement to the temple of God with images? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God said, That I will dwell in them, and will go round about; and will be their God, and they shall be a people to me.

And not only in his arrival, but also in the comfort which he was comforted in you, announcing to us your anxious desire, your lamentations, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced the more.

For if I also grieved you in the epistle, I regret not, and if I did regret: for I see that that epistle, if also for a time, grieved you.

Now I rejoice, not that ye were grieved, but that ye were grieved to repentance: for ye were grieved according to God, that ye be injured in nothing by us.

For behold, this same that ye grieve according to God, what care it wrought in you, but defence, but indignation, but fear, but anxious desire, but zeal, but punishing! In every thing ye recommended yourselves to be holy in this affair.

Wherefore, if I also wrote to you, not for him having been unjust, for him having suffered injustice, but that your care for us might be made manifest to you before God.

I rejoice that I place confidence in you in everything.

That in much proof of pressure the abundance of their joy and their poverty according to depth abounded to the abundance of their simplicity.

Praying us with much entreaty that we receive the grace and participation of the service for saints.

So that we besought Titus, that as he began before, so also he would complete to us this grace also.

But as ye abound in everything, in faith, and in word, and in knowledge, and in all care, and in love from you to us, that also ye abound in this grace.

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for you he was in a state of beggary, being rich; that ye in his poverty might be rich.

And now also complete ye the doing; that as a forwardness to will so also to complete, out of what is possessed.

For not that ease to others, and pressure to you:

But of equality, now in this time your abundance for their want, that also their abundance be for your want: that there be equality:

For I know your forwardness, which I boast of for you to the Macedonians, that Achaia was prepared from last year; and zeal from you excited the many more.

And I sent the brethren, lest our boasting for you be empty in this part; that, as I said, ye might be prepared:

Lest if in some way the Macedonians come with me, and find you unprepared, we should be ashamed, (that we should not say, ye) in this principle of boasting.

Therefore I thought necessary to beseech the brethren that they go before to you, and prepare beforehand your praise, having been proclaimed beforehand, this same to be prepared, so as praise, and not as covetousness.

See ye things according to the face? If any has persuaded himself to be of Christ, let him reckon this again of himself, that, as he of Christ, so we also of Christ.

Let such a one reckon this, that, such as we are in the word by the epistles, being away, such also, being present, in deed.

Or did I a sin, humbling myself that ye might be exalted, because I announced to you the good news of God gratuitously?

And what I do, and I will do, that I shall not cut off the occasion of those wishing the occasion; that in what they boast, they be found as also we.

Again I say, lest any one should think me to be mad; and if not so indeed, as mad do ye receive me that I might also boast myself some little.

I speak according to dishonour, as that we were weak. And in what any dares, (I speak in rashness,) I dare also.

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, he being praised forever, that I lie not.

That he was carried off into paradise, and heard words not to be told, which it was not permitted man to speak.

And lest I be lifted up by the eminence of Revelation, a thorn in the flesh was given me, a messenger of Satan, that he might cuff me, lest I be lifted up.

For this thrice besought I the Lord, that it remove away from me.

And he said to me, My grace suffices thee: for my power is perfected in weakness. Therefore very willingly will I boast rather in my weaknesses, that Christ's power may lodge upon me.

For what is it which ye were inferior to the rest of the churches, except that I myself acted not with negligence to you? favor me for this injustice.

Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves to you? before God in Christ we speak: and all things, beloved, for your building up.

I have said before, and say beforehand, as being present the second; and being away now I write to them having sinned before, and to all the rest, that, if I should come again, I will not spare:

Try yourselves, if ye are in the faith; prove yourselves. Or know ye not yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless ye are not tried?

And I hope that ye shall know that we are not untried.

And I pray to God that ye do nothing evil; not that we appear tried, but that ye do good, and we be as untried.

For this I write these things being absent, that being present I should not wound severely, according to the power which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for pulling down.