Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth, and all God's people all over Greece;

If I am in trouble, it is to bring you comfort and salvation, and if I am comforted, it is for the sake of the comfort which you experience when you steadfastly endure such sufferings as I also have to bear.

My hopes for you are unshaken. For I know that just as surely as you share my sufferings, just so surely you will share my comfort.

For I do not want you, brothers, to misunderstand the distress that I experienced in Asia, for I was so utterly and unendurably crushed, that I actually despaired of life itself.

So deadly was the peril from which he saved me, as he will save me again! It is on him that I have set my hope that he will save me again.

For my boast is what my conscience tells me, that my relations to the world and still more to you have been marked by pure motives and godly sincerity, not by worldly shrewdness but by the favor of God.

For what I am writing to you is only what you can read and understand, and I hope that you will understand it fully,

as some of you have come to understand me, and that you will understand that you have a right to be proud of me, as I have of you, on the Day of our Lord Jesus.

As surely as God can be relied on, there has been no equivocation about our message to you.

for to all the promises of God he supplies the "Yes" that confirms them. That is why we utter the "Amen" through him, when we give glory to God.

But it is God who guarantees us and you to Christ; he has anointed us

and put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts, as earnest-money.

But upon my soul I call God to witness that it is simply to spare you that I have stayed away from Corinth.

For if I hurt your feelings, who is there to cheer me up but the man whose feelings I hurt?

This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy.

For I was in great trouble and distress of mind when I wrote you, and I shed many tears as I did it, yet it was not to hurt your feelings, but to make you realize the extraordinary affection I have for you.

But if anyone has hurt anybody's feelings, it is not so much mine, as yours, or at least those of some of you, not to be too hard upon you all.

For that individual, this censure by the majority of you is punishment enough,

For that is why I wrote you??o find out how you would stand the test, and see if you would obey me absolutely.

When you forgive a man, I forgive him too. For anything I had to forgive has been forgiven on your account, and as in the very presence of Christ,

to keep Satan from getting the better of us. For we know what he is after.

But thank God! he always leads me in his triumphal train, through Christ, and spreads the perfume of knowledge of him everywhere through me as his censer-bearer.

to the one, a deathly, deadly odor, to the other a vital, life-giving one. Who is qualified for this task? I am!

Such is the confidence that I have through Christ in my relations to God.

Not that I am of myself qualified to claim anything as originating with me. My qualification is from God,

and he has qualified me to serve him in the interests of a new agreement, not in writing but of spirit. For what is written kills, but the Spirit gives life.

For if what faded away came with splendor, how much more splendid what is permanent must be!

Their minds were dulled. For to this day, that same veil remains unlifted, when they read the old agreement, for only through union with Christ is it removed.

Why, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil hangs over their minds,

but "whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is removed."