If anyone claims to have the prophetic spirit, or any other spiritual gift, let him recognize that what I now am writing is the Lord's command.

After that, at one time He was seen by more than five hundred brothers, most of whom are still living, though some of them have fallen asleep.

But by God's unmerited favor I have become what I am, and His unmerited favor shown to me was not bestowed for nothing, for I have toiled more extensively than any of them, and yet it was not I but God's unmerited favor working with me.

and we are found guilty of lying about God, for we have testified that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if indeed the dead are never raised.

Yes, even those who have fallen asleep, though in union with Christ, have perished.

If for this life only we Christians have set our hopes on Christ, we are the most pitiable people in the world.

But in reality Christ has been raised from the dead, the first to be raised of those who have fallen asleep.

If from merely human motives I have fought wild beasts here in Ephesus, what profit will it be to me? If the dead are never raised at all, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead."

and what you sow does not have the body that it is going to have, but is a naked grain, of wheat (it may be) or something else;

and as we have reflected the likeness of him who was made of dust, let us also reflect the likeness of the Man from heaven.

For I have an opportunity here that is great and calls for work, and it has many opponents.

As for our brother Apollos, I have earnestly urged him to go to see you, but he is not at all inclined to come just now; yet he is coming when he has a good opportunity.

Now I beg you, brothers -- you know that the family of Stephanas were the first converts in Greece, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of God's people --

And I am glad that Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus have come to see me, because they have supplied what you lacked.

Yes, they have cheered my spirit, and yours too. You must deeply appreciate such men.

who comforts me in every sorrow I have, so that I can comfort people who are in sorrow with the comfort with which I am comforted by God.

He saved me from a death so horrible, and He will save me again! He it is on whom I have set my hope that He will still save me,

For my boast is this, to which my conscience testifies, that before the world, but especially before you, I have acted from pure motives and in sincerity before God, not depending on worldly wisdom but on God's unmerited favor.

For what I am writing you is nothing more than what you can read and understand, and I hope that you will understand it perfectly, just as some of you have come to understand me partially;

that is, to understand that you have grounds for boasting of me just as I have for boasting of you, on the day of our Lord Jesus.

that is, to go by you on my way to Macedonia, and then to come back to you from Macedonia, and have you send me on to Judea.

Now I did not resort to fickleness, did I, in planning that? Or, do I make my plans in accordance with worldly notions, to have my "Yes" mean "No," if I want it so?

For I have definitely decided not to pay you another painful visit.

The man that you forgive I too forgive. For if I have forgiven him anything, it is what I have forgiven him in the very presence of Christ for your sake,

Such is the confidence I have through Christ in the presence of God.

So, as I have such a hope, I speak with the greatest boldness,

So, because I hold a place in this ministry and that because I have had God's mercy shown me, I never give up.

On the other hand, I have renounced all underhanded, disgraceful methods; I neither practice cunning nor do I tamper with God's message, but by clear and candid statements of truth I try to commend myself to every human conscience in God's sight.

Now since I have the same spirit of faith as he who said in the Scriptures, "I believed, and so I spoke," I too believe, and so I speak,

For I know that if this earthly tent in which I live is taken down, I have a building in heaven which comes from God, a house not built by human hands but eternal.

I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you ground for speaking well of me, that you may have something to say to those who are constantly prating about external privileges and not concerned about the state of the heart.

For the love of Christ continuously constrains me, because I am convinced that as One died for all, all have died,

For He says: "At a welcome time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." Right now the time of welcome is here; right now it is the day of salvation.

Stop forming intimate and inconsistent relations with unbelievers. What partnership can right-doing have with law-breaking, or how can light participate with darkness?

So, since we have such promises as these, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles our bodies and spirits, and in reverence to God carry on our consecration to completeness.

Make room for me in your hearts, I have not wronged or harmed or taken advantage of a single one of you.

I do not mean this for your condemnation, because, as I have said before, you have such a place in my heart that I would live with you or die with you.

I have the greatest confidence in you; I speak most highly of you. I am fully comforted; in the face of all my sorrow my cup is running over with joy.

For see what this very sorrow, suffered in accordance with the will of God, has done for you! How earnest it has made you, how concerned to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how much it made you long to see me, how loyal to me, how determined to punish the offender! At every point you have cleared yourselves in the matter.

Indeed, if I have been doing some boasting of you to him, I have never been ashamed of it; but just as all I said to him was true, so now my boasting before Titus has been shown to be true.

I am glad that I have perfect confidence in you now.

For they have given, I can testify, to the utmost of their ability, and even beyond their ability. Of their own accord,

Now finish doing it too, so that your readiness to finish it may be just like your readiness to start it, in accordance with what you have.

If a man is ready and willing to give, his gift is acceptable in accordance with what he has, not with what he does not have.

just as the Scripture says, "The man who gathered much did not have too much, and the man who gathered little did not have too little."

But thanks be to God, who kindles in the heart of Titus the same enthusiasm for you that I have;

I send with them another brother of ours, whom I have often in many ways tested and found to be enthusiastic, but now he is more enthusiastic than ever, because of his great confidence in you.

But I send the brothers that in this matter my boasting of you may not turn out to be an idle boasting, that you all may be ready, as I have told them you will be,

So I have thought it necessary to urge these brothers to visit you ahead of me and get your promised love-offering ready beforehand, so as to have it ready as a real love-offering, not as one grasped and grudgingly given.

And God is able to make your every spiritual blessing overflow for you, so that you will always have in every situation an entire sufficiency and so overflow for every good cause;

You look at me and measure me by outward appearances. If anyone is confident in himself that he belongs to Christ, let him have another thought about himself, that just as he belongs to Christ, so do I.

For if I do boast a little too much about my authority, which the Lord gave me for building you up and not for tearing you down, I shall never have to blush for doing so.

Although I am untrained as an orator, yet I am not so in the field of knowledge. Surely, I have always made that perfectly clear to you.

Did I do wrong in taking a lowly place to let you have an exalted one, in that I preached the good news about God to you without accepting any pay?

Five times I have taken thirty-nine lashes from the Jews,

three times I have been beaten by the Romans, once I was pelted with stones; three times I have been shipwrecked, and once I have spent a day and a night adrift at sea.

I have served Him on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from the heathen, dangers in the city, dangers in the desert, dangers at sea, dangers from false brothers,

I have to keep on boasting. There is no good to be gotten from it, but I will go on to visions and revelations which the Lord has given me.

I have made a fool of myself, but you have forced me to do it, for I am the man who ought to have been constantly approved by you. For I am not a single bit inferior to your surpassingly superior apostles, though really I am "nobody."

It is now the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I will never ask you for financial support, for it is not your money but you yourselves that I want; for children are not by duty bound to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

and that when I come back my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn over some of those who formerly have committed shocking sins, and have not repented for them -- their impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality, which once they practiced.

I have already warned those who formerly committed shocking sins, and all the rest, and though so far away I warn them now, as I did on my second visit, that if I come back I will not spare them,

This is why I am writing this while far away from you, that when I do come, I may not have to deal harshly with you in accordance with the authority which the Lord has given me, for building you up, not for tearing you down.

But even if I or an angel from heaven preach a good news that is contrary to the one which I have already preached to you, a curse upon him!

As I have said it before, so now I say it again, if anybody is preaching to you a good news that is contrary to the one which you have already received, a curse upon him!

You have heard, indeed, of my former conduct as an adherent of the Jewish religion, how I kept on furiously persecuting the church of God, and tried to destroy it,

I went up under the guidance of a divine revelation. Now I laid before them the good news that I was in the habit of preaching among the heathen, but first I did so privately before the leaders, for fear that my course might be or might have been to no purpose.

because we know that a man does not come into right standing with God by doing what the law commands, but by simple trust in Christ, we too have trusted in Christ Jesus, in order to come into right standing with God by simple trust in Christ and not by doing what the law commands, because by doing what the law commands no man can come into right standing with God.

Now if, in our efforts to come into right standing with God through union with Christ, we have proved ourselves to be sinners like the heathen themselves, does that make Christ a party to our sin? Of course not.

For through the law I myself have become dead to the law, so that I may live for God.

I have been crucified with Christ, and I myself no longer live, but Christ is living in me; the life I now live as a mortal man I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Have you suffered so much for nothing? If it really is for nothing.

Is the law then contrary to God's promises? Of course not. For if a law had been given that was able to impart life, surely, then, right standing would have come through law.

But the Scripture pictures all mankind as prisoners of sin, so that the promised blessing through faith in Christ might be given to those who have faith.

For all of you who have been baptized into union with Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

but now, since you have come to know God, or rather have come to be known by Him, how can you turn back to your own crude notions, so weak and worthless, and wish to become slaves to them again?

I am beginning to fear that I have bestowed my labors on you for nothing.

Where is your self-congratulation? For I can testify that you would have torn out your very eyes, if you could, and have given them to me.

Have I then turned into an enemy to you, because I tell you the truth?

Now it is a fine thing to have special attention paid you, if it is done sincerely and unceasingly, and not only when I am with you.

You people, whoever you are among you, who try to get into right standing with God, through law have cut yourselves off from Christ, you have missed the way of God's favor.

By our union with the Lord I have confidence in you that you will take no other view of the matter. The man who is unsettling you will certainly pay the penalty for it, no matter who it turns out to be.

I almost wish that these men who are upsetting you would go all the way, and have themselves mutilated.

envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I now warn you, as I have done before, that those who practice such things shall not be heirs of the kingdom of God.

And those who belong to Jesus the Christ have crucified the lower nature with its passions and evil cravings.

Everyone should test his own work until it stands the test, and then he will have ground for boasting with reference to himself alone, and not with reference to someone else.

So then whenever we have an opportunity, let us practice doing good to everybody, but especially to the members of the family of faith.

It is through union with Him that we have redemption by His blood and the forgiveness of our shortcomings, in accordance with the generosity of His unmerited favor

You too, as you have heard the message of the truth, the good news that means your salvation, and as you have trusted in Him too, have been stamped with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit,

This is why I myself, since I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and in all His people,

has made us, though dead because of our shortcomings, live again in fellowship with Christ -- it is by His unmerited favor that you have been saved.

For it is by His unmerited favor through faith that you have been saved; it is not by anything that you have done, it is the gift of God.

But now through your union with Christ Jesus you who were once far away have through the blood of Christ been brought near.

for it is by Him through one Spirit that both of us now have an introduction to the Father.

that is, if you have heard how God's favor has been entrusted to me for you,

and how by revelation the secret was made known to me, as I have briefly written before.

By union with Him and through faith in Him we have a free and confidential introduction to God.

So I, a prisoner for the Lord's sake, entreat you to live lives worthy of the call you have received,

There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope resulting from the call you have received;

for in their recklessness they have abandoned themselves to sensuality which leads to excessive practices of all sorts of immorality.