May God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

And then many lips will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us in answer to many prayers.

I wrote to you in sore trouble and distress of heart and with many tears, not to give you pain, but to let you see how intense a love I have for you.

Our fitness comes from God, who himself made us fit to be ministers of a New Covenant, of which the substance is, not a written Law, but a Spirit. For the written Law means Death, but the Spirit gives Life.

And all of us, with faces from which the veil is lifted, seeing, as if reflected in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his likeness, from glory to glory, as it is given by the Lord, the Spirit.

Indeed, we who still live are continually being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the Life also of Jesus may be exhibited in our mortal nature.

And he who has prepared us for this change is God, who has also given us his Spirit as a pledge.

For our object is not to give relief to others and bring distress on you, but, by equalizing matters, to secure that,

Therefore I think it necessary to urge the Brothers to go to you in advance, and to complete the arrangements for the gift, which you have already promised, so that it may be ready, as a gift, before I come, and not look as if it were being given under pressure.

Let every one give as he has determined before hand, not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves 'a cheerful giver.'

We, however, will not give way to unlimited boasting, but will confine ourselves to the limits of the sphere to which God limited us, when he permitted us to come as far as Corinth.

I must boast! It is unprofitable; but I will pass to visions and revelations given by the Lord.