Yes, I felt within my very self the sentence of death, to keep me from depending on myself instead of God who raises the dead.

For if I make you sad, who is there to make me glad but the very man who has been made sad by me?

This is the very thing I wrote you, that when I did come I might not be made sad by the very people who ought to make me glad, for I had confidence in you all that my gladness would be gladness to you all.

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,

Indeed, to this very day, whenever Moses is read, a veil hangs over their hearts,

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.

For I am not overstepping my authority as though I should not reach you, for I was the very first to reach as far as you with the good news of Christ.

I actually begged Titus to go, and sent the well-known brother with him. Titus did not make any money out of you, did he? Did not he and I act in the same spirit, and take the very same steps?

Are you thinking all this time that I am defending myself to you? It is in the very presence of God and as one who is in union with Christ that I am speaking. And it is all for building you up, beloved, for I am apprehensive that, somehow or other, when I come I shall find you not as I want to find you, and that you may find me not as you want to find me.