THE APOSTLE'S LOVE OF THE CORINTHIANS, HIS TRIALS, HIS DESIGN TO VISIT THEM, HIS FORMER LETTER, ETC.
1 1:1PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy the brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia. 1:2Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 1:3Blessed be the God and lather of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 1:4who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those in every affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God, 1:5because as Christ's sufferings abound in us, so also through Christ does our comfort abound. 1:6And if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, wrought by a patient endurance the same sufferings which we also suffer, and our hope for you is strong; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort and salvation, 1:7knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so you are also of the comfort.
3 1:8For we wish you not to be ignorant, brothers, of our affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were exceedingly oppressed beyond our power, so that we despaired even of life; 1:9but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we might not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, 1:10who delivered us from so great a death and will deliver, in whom we hope that he will also still deliver, 1:11you also striving together for us in prayer, that thanks may be rendered for us by many persons for the gift bestowed on us by many.
4 1:12For this is our rejoicing; the testimony of our conscience that in purity and godly sincerity, not with a carnal wisdom, but with a divine grace, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and most abundantly towards you. 1:13For we do not write to you of other things, but of what you read and acknowledge; and I hope you will also acknowledge to the end, 1:14as you have also acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing as you also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.
5 1:15And in this confidence I wished to come to you before, that you might have a second benefit, 1:16and to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again from Macedonia to you, and by you to be sent forward to Judea. 1:17Wishing this therefore, did I use lightness? or what I wish do I wish according to the flesh, that with me there may be the yes, yes, and the no, no? 1:18But as God is faithful, our word to you was not yes and no. 1:19For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yes and no, but was yes in him; 1:20for all the promises of God, the yes in him, and the Amen in him, are for glory to God by us. 1:21And he that establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, 1:22who has also sealed us and given us the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts.
6 1:23But I call God to witness on my soul, that to spare you I have not yet come to Corinth. 1:24Not that we are lords of your faith, but co-laborers of your joy; for you stand firm by the faith. 2:1But I determined this with myself, not to come again to you in sorrow; 2:2for if I grieve you, who is he that gladdens me, but he that is grieved by me? 2:3And I wrote the same to you that coming I might not have sorrow for those in whom I ought to have joy, having trusted in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. 2:4For I wrote to you in much affliction and distress of mind with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have abundantly for you.
7 2:5But if any one has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but in part, that I may not be hard upon you, [has grieved you] all, 2:6Sufficient for such a one is this rebuke by many; 2:7so that on the other hand you ought to forgive and comfort him, that he may not be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow. 2:8I exhort you, therefore, to confirm your love to him; 2:9for I wrote for this purpose, that I might know the proof of you, whether you are obedient in all things. 2:10But whom you favor I also will favor; for what favor I have shown, if I have shown any favor, has been for your sakes, in the presence of Christ, 2:11that we may not be circumvented by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his devices.
8 2:12But when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened to me by the Lord, 2:13I had no rest in my spirit from not finding Titus my brother; but leaving them I went to Macedonia. 2:14But thanks be to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ and reveals the odor of his knowledge by us in every place; 2:15for we are a sweet odor of Christ to God, in the saved and in the lost, 2:16in one an odor of death to death, and in the other an odor of life to life. And who is sufficient for these things? 2:17For we are not as many, who adulterate the word of God, [for gain]; but as of sincerity, but as of God, we speak before God in Christ.
9 3:1Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some, commendatory epistles to you or from you? 3:2You are our epistle, written by our hearts, known and read by all men, 3:3for you are manifestly an epistle of Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of hearts of flesh. 3:4And we have such confidence through Jesus Christ in God; 3:5not that we are sufficient of ourselves to reason out any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, 3:6who also has made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the writing but of the spirit; for the writing kills, but the spirit makes alive.