For I wrote you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, yet our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

For behold what this very thing, godly sorrow, has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what readiness to see justice done! At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.

So although I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong, nor on account of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your zeal for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God.

Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves before you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved.

For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you what I wish you to be, and you may not find me what you wish me to be; I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.