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.

and not alone by his coming, but also by the comfort you had been to him. For he told me of your eager longing, of your penitence, and of your zeal on my behalf, so that I was happier still.

Even if I caused you pain by my letter, I do not regret; though I did regret it when I saw that my letter had caused you pain, even for a time.

For your pain came from God, and so you took no harm from me. For the pain which is from God works repentance leading to salvation, a repentance never to be regretted. But the world's pain works death.

So then, even if I did write to you, it was not for the sake of the wrong-doer, or of him who had been wronged, but to make clear to yourselves in the sight of God your earnest care for me.

Although I have been boasting a little to him about you, I have not been put to shame. But as in every matter I have spoken the truth to you, so also my boast to Titus has been proved to be the truth.

With the result that I have been begging Titus that, as he had been the one to begin the work with you, so he should complete among you this grace also.

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.

I do not say this by way of command, but by the zeal of others I am trying to prove the reality of your love.

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.

but burdens are to be equalized. Now your abundance at this present time present time is a supply for their want, in supply for your want; and so burdens be equalized,

More than that, he is the one chosen by the churches to accompany me on my journey, in administering this gift of yours for the Lord's glory. And this has my full consent,

So show to the churches an evidence of your love, and a justification to these brothers of my boasting about you.

Nevertheless I am sending the brothers in order that my boast about you may not prove vain in this instance; so that, as I kept saying, you may be prepared.

So I have thought that I must ask these brothers to visit you beforehand, and get your promised contribution ready in advance. I want it to be given of your bounty, not extorted from your covetousness.

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;

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.

Look these facts in the face. If any man is fully persuaded as regards himself that he belongs to Christ, let him consider again with himself, that just as he is Christ's, so also am I.

I may carry the gospel to countries beyond you; and not be boasting of work made ready to my hand within another man's limit.

But I fear lest, just as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, so your minds should be seduced from your single-mindedness and purity toward Christ.

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 say again, let no one think me a fool. Or, if you must, at least bear with me as a fool, that I, too, may do a little boasting.

What I am about to say I am not speaking by the Lord's command, but as it were in pure folly, in this boldness of boasting.

Since so many are making worldly boasts, I shall boast, too!

I say that I was weak, and yet for whatever reason any one is bold (I speak in mere folly) I too am bold.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they descendants of Israel? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.

Three times I have been scourged by the Romans; once I have been stoned; three times have I been shipwrecked; a night and a day have I been adrift in the open sea.

My journeys have been many; in perils of rivers, in perils of bandits; in perils from my countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness; in perils on the sea, in perils among false brothers;

but through an opening in the wall I was let down in a basket, and so escaped and out of his hands.

Most gladly therefore will I boast rather of my weakness, that over me like a tent may be pitched the power of Christ. That is why I rejoice in weakness, in ill-treatment, in troubles, in persecutions and calamities for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

But though it be granted that I was not a burden to you, yet, you say, this was my cunning with which I caught you by a trick.

I have said formerly, and I now forewarn you as when I was present the second time, so now when I am absent the second time, so now when I am absent, saying to those who had sinned before, and to all the rest, "If I come again, I will not spare,"

Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith; put your own selves to the proof. Or do you not know, your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to abide the proof?

For this reason I am writing thus while absent, so that when I come, I may not have to deal sharply, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for pulling down.

Finally, brothers, farewell. Aim at perfection, take courage, be of one mind, live in peace; so shall the God of love and peace be with you.

I am amazed that you are so soon shifting your ground, and deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ,

and had called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach his gospel among the Gentiles, without consulting a human being,

or even going up to Jerusalem to see those who had been apostles before me, I went off at once to Arabia, and on my return came back to Damascus.

I saw no other apostle except James, the Lord's brother.

But those in authority??hat they once were makes no difference to me; God is no respecter of persons??hose I say who were in authority had no additions to make my message.

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter has with the gospel for the circumcised

And the rest of the Jewish Christians also dissimulated with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that they were not walking a straight path, in the presence of the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all. "If you, although you are a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, why do you try to compel the Gentiles to become Jews?

I have been crucified with Christ, so it is no longer I who am living, but it is Christ who is living in me; and the life I am now living in the flesh, I am living in faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

Are you so without sense? After beginning with the Spirit, will you now end with the flesh?

And the Scripture, anticipating God's justification of the Gentiles by faith, announced the gospel to Abraham beforehand in the words, In thee shall all the Gentiles be blessed.

So then they who are children of faith are blessed with Abraham the faithful;

to the end that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, so that through faith we might receive the promised Spirit.

Now it was to Abraham that the promises were spoken, and to his offspring. God did not say, "offsprings" as if speaking of many, but "and to your offspring," as of one; and this is Christ.

I mean to say that the testament which God has already ratified could not be annulled by the Law which came four hundred and thirty years later, so as to make the Promise void.

So the Law has been our tutor-slave our pedagogue to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith;

So we Jews also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the empty externalities of the world.

So each one of you is no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir, too, through God's grace.

Why then did you account yourselves so happy? (For I bear you witness that if you could you would have torn out your own eyes and given them to me.)

These men are courting your favor to no good purpose. They want to isolate you, so that you will be courting their favor.

but just as in old times the son born by the flesh used to persecute the son born by the power of the Spirit, so also it is now.

But what does the Scripture say? Send away the slave-woman and her son; for the slave's son shall not be heir along with the son of the free woman.

So, brothers, we are the children of no slave woman, but of free woman. For freedom did not Christ set us free;

For the desire of the flesh is against that of the Spirit, and the desire of the Spirit is against that of the flesh, for they two are antagonistic, so that you may not do those things that you wish.

Ever be bearing one another's burdens, and so be fulfilling the law of Christ.

So then, as we have opportunity, let is do good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of faith.

See with what large letters I have written to you in my own handwriting!

Even those who are being circumcised, are not themselves keeping the Law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may glory in your flesh.

so abundantly did he lavish upon us the riches of his grace in all wisdom and understanding,

when he made known to us, I say, that good pleasure which he purposed in himself

and that the eyes of your heart may be flooded with light so that you may understand what is the hope of his calling, what the wealth of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

God has put all things under Christ's feet, and placed him as Head over all in the church,

And so God has given life to you Gentiles also, who were once dead in your trespasses and sins,

in which you passed your lives after the way of this world, under the sway of the Prince of the Powers of the Air, the spirit who is now working among the sons of disobedience.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is God's gift.

It is not of works, so that any one can boast of it;

Do not forget then, that you Gentiles in the flesh, who are called "uncircumcision" by the "circumcision" made in flesh by man's hand,

In his own body he abolished the cause of our enmity, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, in order to make the two into one new man in himself, so making peace.

So he came preaching "Peace" to you Gentiles who were afar off, and "Peace" to us Jews who were near;

Take notice then that no longer are you strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household.

and should make all men see the new dispensation of that secret purpose, hidden from eternity in the God who founded the universe,

So I beg you not to lose heart over my tribulations in your behalf; they are your glory.

that Christ may make his home in your hearts through your faith; that you may be so deeply rooted and so firmly grounded in love,

and may know the love of Christ which transcends all knowing, so that you may be filled with all the "plenitude" of God.

So we shall no longer be children, tossed up and down, and blown about by every wind of teaching, tricked by the craft of men in the snares of misleading error;

From him the whole body (knit together and compacted by all its joints) makes continual growth of the body so as to build itself up in love, through the energy of his bounteous provision, according to the need of each several part.

This then I tell you and implore you in the Master's name, to pass your lives no longer as the Gentiles do in the perverseness of their minds;

But you have not so learned Christ,

and to put on the new self, created after God's likeness, in the uprightness and holiness of the truth.

So then put away falseness and speak every man the truth to his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Let him who stole steal no more, but let him work, and in honest industry toil with his hands, so that he may have something to give to the needy.

so too with vulgarity and buffoonery and foolish jesting. Such words become you not, but rather thanksgiving.

See to it, then, that you carry on your life carefully; not as foolish, but as wise men.

For this reason do not be thoughtless, but learn to know what the Lord's will is.

But as the church submits itself to Christ, so also wives to their husbands in everything.

so as to present her to himself, the church glorified, without spot or wrinkle or any such blemish; but on the contrary holy and faultless.

Put on all the panoply of God, so that you may be able to stand your ground against the stratagems of the devil.

Therefore take up the panoply of God, so that when the evil day comes you may be able to withstand them, and having overthrown them all, to stand your ground.

for testing things that differ, so that you may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ,

and most of the brothers in the Lord, made confident in the Lord through my imprisonment, are much emboldened to speak God's message with free and fearless confidence.

So it is my keen expectation and hope that I shall never feel ashamed, but that with fearless courage, now as hither to, Christ may be magnified in my body, whether by my life or by my death.

so that you may find me fresh cause of exultation in Christ Jesus, because of my presence among you once more.

Only do lead lives worthy of the gospel of Christ; so that whether I come to see you or hear reports concerning you in my absence, I may know that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one soul, enlisted in a common struggle for the faith of the gospel,

For it has been granted you in Christ's behalf, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake,

while you wage the same conflict which you once saw in me, and now hear that I maintain.