If we suffer, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are suffering.

When I planned this, I did not do it lightly, did I? Are my plans so fickle that I can say "Yes" and "No" at the same time?

But if anyone has caused grief, he didn't cause me any grief. To some extent I don't want to emphasize this too much it has affected all of you.

To some people we are a deadly fragrance, while to others we are a living fragrance. Who is qualified for this?

Are we beginning to recommend ourselves again? Unlike some people, we do not need letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we?

However, their minds were hardened, for to this day the same veil is still there when they read the old covenant. Only in union with the Messiah is that veil removed.

Now since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with this Scripture: "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak.

For if I have been doing some boasting about you to him, I have never been ashamed of it. Moreover, since everything we told you was true, our boasting to Titus has also proved to be true.

So we urged Titus to finish this work of kindness among you in the same way that he had started it.

But thanks be to God, who placed in the heart of Titus the same dedication to you that I have.

I beg you that when I come I will not need to be courageous by daring to oppose some people who think that we are living according to the flesh.

We would not dare put ourselves in the same class with, or compare ourselves to, those who recommend themselves. Whenever they measure themselves by their own standards or compare themselves among themselves, they show how foolish they are.

Granting that I have not been a burden to you, was I a clever schemer who trapped you by some trick?

I encouraged Titus to visit you, and I sent along with him the brother you know so well. Titus didn't take advantage of you, did he? We conducted ourselves with the same spirit, didn't we? We took the very same steps, didn't we?

We pray to God that you will not do anything wrong not to show that we have not failed the test, but so that you may do what is right, even if we seem to have failed.