To the Church of God which is in Corinth, and to all the saints throughout Greece. from Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ, and from brother Timothy.

Thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of tender mercies and the God of all comfort,

who ever comforts me in all my troubles, so that I may be continually able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which God is ever comforting me.

Now, brothers, I want you to know about the troubles which befell me in Asia; how I was burdened altogether beyond my strength, so that I renounced all hope even of life itself.

He delivered me from such a death, and will deliver me. On him I have set my hopes that he will continue to deliver me,

while all of you also are helping me by your prayers; so that from many lips thanksgiving may rise on my behalf for the blessings vouchsafed to me through the intercessions of many.

For this is my proud boast, the testimony of my conscience, that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, not in worldly wisdom, but in the grace of God, that I have conducted myself in the world, and above all in my relations with you.

For I am writing to you nothing different from what you read aloud and very well recognize, and I hope will continue to recognize to the very end,

as some indeed did recognize in part at last, that I am your cause of boasting, just as you will be mine on the Day of Jesus our Lord.

And for this very reason I wrote you, that I might not come only to be grieved by those who ought to give me joy; and because I trusted in you all, that my joy is the joy of all of you.

As to him who has been, and now is, causing pain, it is not I whom he has pained, but all of you??t least some of you (not to overstate the case).

You are my letter, written on my heart, known and read by all men.

Since all can see that you are a letter of Christ transcribed by men, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts as tablets.

For if that which was fading came in glory, far more will that which ever abides be glorious.

And we all, with unveiled faces, reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are ourselves continually being transformed into the same likeness, from glory to glory, as by the Lord, the Spirit.

So while death is working in me, life is working in you.

For I know that He who raised from the dead the Lord Jesus, will raise me also with Jesus, and set me at your side in his presence.

while I am gazing not at things seen, but at things unseen; for things seen are temporal, but things unseen are eternal.

Therefore I am always of good courage, because I well know that while I am at home in the body, I am in banishment from the Lord,

So I have good courage, and am well pleased rather, to be in banishment from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

For we must all be made manifest, in our true characters, before the Judgment-seat of Christ; so that each one may receive according to that which he has done in his body, whether good or evil.

For the love of Christ overmasters me; because I thus judge that if One has died for all, then all have died;

and that he died for all in order that the living may live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again for them.

And all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled me to himself, and gave me the ministry of reconciliation;

as unknown and yet well known; as at death's door, yet, strange to tell, I live on; as chastened, but not killed;

And what compact has God's temple with idols? For we are a temple of the living God, as he has said: I will dwell among them, and walk about among them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.

then I will receive you and will be to you a Father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Great is my faith in you; great is my cheerful assurance in you. I am filled with comfort; in spite of all my troubles, my heart is overflowing with joy.

This is what comforts me. In addition to this comfort of mine, I have been made still happier by the happiness of Titus; because his spirit was refreshed by you all.

And his tender affection is all the greater toward you, when he calls to mind the obedience of you all, and the fear and trembling with which you received him.

For I can testify that according to their ability, and even beyond their ability, of their own free will, too, they have given help.

And this not as I had expected, but in accordance with the will of God, they first gave themselves to God and to me.

Now then, as you excel in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and all zeal and in your love to me, see to it that you excel in this grace also.

And I will give you my opinion in this matter; for this offering is fitting in your case, considering that you made a beginning before others, not only in the willingness to do something but also in actually doing something a year ago.

So now complete the doing of it also, in order that just as there was the readiness to will, so there may be the accomplishment according to your means.

And I am sending with him that brother whose fame in the service of the gospel is spread through all the churches.

Mark this; he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

And God is able to give you an overflowing measure of every grace, so that all your wants of every kind may be supplied at all times, and you may give of your abundance to every good work;

He who ever supplies seed to the sower, and bread for the food of man, will supply and make plentous your seed, and increase the harvest springing up from your almsgiving.

You yourselves will be enriched with all good things, that you may give ungrudgingly; and your gifts, of which I am the agent, will make men give thanks to God.

For this ministration proves you. On account of it men glorify God for your faithfulness to your professions of the gospel of Christ, and for the liberality of your gifts to them and to all.

Moreover, in their prayers for you they will be longing after you, because of the exceeding grace of God that is resting upon you.

Now I Paul, myself, appeal to you by the humble-heartedness and selflessness of Christ??aul who "in your presence is humble, but bold enough when he is absent"??2 I beseech you, and I say, do not make me show my boldness, when I come in the boldness with which I think I shall show my courage against some who think that I am walking on the low level of the flesh.

for the weapons of my warfare are not weapons of the flesh, but mighty for God, in pulling down all fortresses.

Let such a man assure himself that my actions, when I am present, will be just like my words in my letters when I am absent.

I, however, will not indulge in undue boasting, but will confine it within the limits of the sphere to which God has assigned me?? sphere which reaches even to you.

If indeed some one is coming to preach another Jesus, whom I did not preach, or you are receiving a Spirit other than you once received, or another gospel which you did not accept before, you would do well to bear with me.

Yes, though I be unskilled in speech, at least I am not in knowledge; indeed I made this perfectly plain to you in all things and among all men.

Even when I lacked the actual necessities of life while I was with you, I was a burden to no one; for whatever I lacked, the brothers from Macedonia supplied, when they came. So I kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.

I am doing and will continue to do this in order to cut away the ground from under those who wish some cause for slander; and that the ground of their boasting may appear as does mine.

It is no great marvel, then, if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. Their end will be according to their works.

Not to mention other things, there is the crowding pressure of each day upon me, the care of all the churches.