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.

Hence my hope for you is well-founded, since I know that as you share the sufferings you share the comfort also.

Now I would like you to know about the distress which befell me in Asia, brothers. I was crushed, crushed far more than I could stand, so much so that I despaired even of life;

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;

he rescued me from so terrible a death, he rescues still, and I rely upon him for the hope that he will continue to rescue me.

Let me have your cooperation in prayer, so that many a soul may render thanks to him on my behalf for the boon which many have been the means of him bestowing on myself.

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.

as you have partly understood the meaning of my life, namely that I am your source of pride (as you are mine) on the Day of our Lord Jesus.

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.

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

(Not that we lord it over your faith ??no, we co-operate for your joy: you have a standing of your own in the faith.)

So the very reason I wrote was that I might not come only to be pained by those who ought to give me joy; I relied on you all, I felt sure that my joy would be a joy for everyone of you.

so that instead of censuring you should now forgive him and comfort him, in case the man is overwhelmed by excessive remorse.

to the one a deadly fragrance that makes for death, to the other a vital fragrance that makes for life. And who is qualified for this career?

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.

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

Now if the administration of death which was engraved in letters of stone, was invested with glory ??so much so, that the children of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses on account of the dazzling glory that was fading from his face;

If there was glory in the administration that condemned, then the administration that acquits abounds far more in glory

Besides, their minds were dulled, for to this very day, when the Old Testament is read aloud, the same veil hangs. Veiled from them the fact that the glory fades in Christ!

(It is Christ Jesus as Lord, not myself, that I proclaim; I am simply a servant of yours for Jesus' sake.)

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

persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed ??10 wherever I go, I am being killed in the body as Jesus was, so that the life of Jesus may come out in my body:

every day of my life I am being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may come out within my mortal flesh.

sure that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise me too with Jesus and set me at your side in his presence.

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.

since I am sure that once so covered I shall not be 'naked' at the hour of death.

I do sigh within this tent of mine with heavy anxiety ??not that I want to be stripped, no, but to be under the cover of the other, to have my mortal element absorbed by life.

Come what may, then, I am confident; I know that while I reside in the body I am away from the Lord

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

for I am controlled by the love of Christ, convinced that as One has died for all, then all have died,

and that he died for all in order to have the living live no longer for themselves but for him who died and rose for them.

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 put no obstacle in the path of any, so that my ministry may not be discredited;

'Restraint'? ??that lies with you, not me.

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].

Yes, and by more than his arrival, by the comfort which you had been to him; for he gave me such a report of how you longed for me, how sorry you were, and how eagerly you took my part, that it added to my delight.

In fact, if I did pain you by that letter, I do not regret it. I did regret it when I discovered that my letter had pained you even for the time being,

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;

See what this pain divine has done for you, how serious it has made you, how keen to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how eager for me, how determined, how relentless! You have shown in every way that you were honest in the business.

That is what comforts me. And over and above my personal comfort, I was specially delighted at the delight of Titus. You have all set his mind at rest.

I can testify that up to their means, aye and beyond their means, they have given ??4 begging me of their own accord, most urgently, for the favour of contributing to the support of the saints.

(You know how gracious our Lord Jesus Christ was; rich though he was, he became poor for the sake of you, that by his poverty you might be rich.)

Now, carry it through, so that your readiness to take it up may be equalled by the way you carry it through ??so far as your means allow.

This does not mean that other people are to be relieved and you to suffer:

it is a matter of give and take; at the present moment your surplus goes to make up what they lack, in order that their surplus may go to make up what you lack.

Along with him I am sending that brother whose services to the gospel are praised by all the churches;

At the same time I am sending these brothers just in case my pride in you should prove an empty boast in this particular instance; I want you to be "all ready," as I have been telling them that you would be,

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.

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;

I beg of you that when I do come I may not have to speak out and be peremptory; but my mind is made up to tackle certain people who have made up their minds that I move on the low level of the flesh.

Look at this obvious fact. So-and-so is perfectly sure he 'belongs to Christ'? Well then, let him understand, on second thoughts, that I 'belong to Christ' as much as he does.

Let him understand that I will act when I arrive, as forcibly as I express myself by letter when I am absent.

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;

I do not boast beyond my limits in a sphere where other men have done the work; my hope rather is that the growth of your faith will allow me to enlarge the range of my appointed sphere

and preach the gospel in the lands that lie beyond you, instead of boasting within another's province over work that is already done.

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!

No, I intend to go on as I am doing, in order to checkmate those who would fain make out that in the apostolate of which they boast they work on the same terms as I do.

I repeat, no one is to think me a fool; but even so, pray bear with me, fool as I am, that I may have my little boast as well as others!

I am quite ashamed to say I was not equal to that sort of thing! But let them vaunt as they please, I am equal to them (mind, this is the role of a fool!).

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)

Of an experience like that I am prepared to boast, but not of myself personally ??not except as regards my weaknesses.

(If I did care to boast of other things, I would be no 'fool,' for I would have a true tale to tell; however, I abstain from that ??I want no one to take me for more than he can see in me or make out from me.)

but he told me, "It is enough for you to have my grace: it is in weakness that [my] power is fully felt." So I am proud to boast of all my weakness, and thus to have the power of Christ resting on my life.

Now this is playing the fool! But you forced me to it, instead of coming forward yourselves and vouching for me. That was what I deserved; for, 'nobody' as I am, I am not one whit inferior to these precious 'apostles.'

You had all the miracles that mark an apostle done for you fully and patiently ??miracles, wonders, and deeds of power.

Where were you inferior to the rest of the churches? ??unless in this, that your apostle did not choose to make himself a burden to you. Pray pardon me this terrible wrong!

Here am I all ready to pay you my third visit. And I will not be a burden to you; I want yourselves and not your money. Children have not to put money by for their parents; that is what parents do for their children.

But let that pass, you say; I was not a burden to you, no, but I was clever enough to dupe you with my tricks? Was I?

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.

I warned you already, on my second visit, and I warn you now before I come, both you who sinned some time ago and the rest of you as well, that I will spare no one if I come back.

That will prove to you that I am indeed a spokesman of Christ. It is no weak Christ you have to do with, but a Christ of power.

Put yourselves to the proof, not me; test yourselves, to see if you are in the faith. Do you not understand that Christ Jesus is within you? Otherwise you must be failures.

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.

I am glad to be weak if you are strong; mend your ways, that is all I ask.

I am writing thus to you in absence, so that when I do come I may not have to deal sharply with you; I have the Lord's authority for that, but he gave it to me for building you up, not for demolishing you.