Indeed, I am the fragrance of Christ to God, alike for those who are being saved and for those who are perishing;

If the meaning of the good news I preach is covered up at all, it is so only in the case of those who are on the way to destruction.

I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you ground for speaking well of me, that you may have something to say to those who are constantly prating about external privileges and not concerned about the state of the heart.

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

For I consider myself not a single bit inferior to those surpassingly superior apostles of yours!

And I shall keep on doing as I am, in order to cut the ground from under the feet of those who want an opportunity to show themselves on a level with me in the matters of which they boast.

and that when I come back my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn over some of those who formerly have committed shocking sins, and have not repented for them -- their impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality, which once they practiced.

I have already warned those who formerly committed shocking sins, and all the rest, and though so far away I warn them now, as I did on my second visit, that if I come back I will not spare them,