001:006 But if, on the one hand, we are enduring affliction, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if, on the other hand, we are receiving comfort, it is for your comfort which is produced within you through your patient fortitude under the same sufferings as those which we also are enduring.
001:007 And our hope for you is stedfast; for we know that as you are partners with us in the sufferings, so you are also partners in the comfort.
001:008 For as for our troubles which came upon us in the province of Asia, we would have you know, brethren, that we were exceedingly weighed down, and felt overwhelmed, so that we renounced all hope even of life.
001:009 Nay, we had, as we still have, the sentence of death within
our own selves, in order that our confidence may repose,
not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead to life.
001:010 He it is who rescued us from so imminent a death, and will
do so again; and we have a firm hope in Him that He will
also rescue us in all the future,
001:011 while you on your part lend us your aid in entreaty for us,
so that from many lips thanksgivings may rise on our behalf
for the boon granted to us at the intercession of many.
001:012 For the reason for our boasting is this—the testimony of our own conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, and in reliance not on worldly wisdom but on the gracious help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and above all in our relations with you.
001:013 For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have
written before, or from what indeed you already recognize
as truth and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end;
001:014 just as some few of you have recognized us as your reason
for boasting, even as you will be ours, on the day of
Jesus our Lord.
001:015 It was because I entertained this confidence that I intended
to visit you before going elsewhere—so that you might receive
a twofold proof of God's favour—