2 Corinthians 6International Children’s Bible (ICB)

6 We are workers together with God. So we beg you: Do not let the grace that you received from God be for nothing. ² God says,

I tell you that the “right time” is now. The “day of salvation” is now.

³ We do not want anyone to find anything wrong with our work. So we do nothing that will be a problem for anyone. ⁴ But in every way we show that we are servants of God: in accepting many hard things, in troubles, in difficulties, and in great problems. ⁵ We are beaten and thrown into prison. Men become upset and fight us. We work hard, and sometimes we get no sleep or food. ⁶ We show that we are servants of God by living a pure life, by our understanding, by our patience, and by our kindness. We show this by the Holy Spirit, by true love, ⁷ by speaking the truth, and by God’s power. We use our right living to defend ourselves against everything. ⁸ Some people honor us, but other people shame us. Some people say good things about us, but other people say bad things. Some people say we are liars, but we speak the truth. ⁹ We are not known, but we are well-known. We seem to be dying, but look—we continue to live. We are punished, but we are not killed. ¹⁰ We have much sadness, but we are always rejoicing. We are poor, but we are making many people rich in faith. We have nothing, but really we have everything.

¹¹ We have spoken freely to you in Corinth. We have opened our hearts to you. ¹² Our feelings of love for you have not stopped. It is you that have stopped your feelings of love for us. ¹³ I speak to you as if you were my children. Do to us as we have done—open your hearts to us.

Warning About Non-Christians

¹⁴ You are not the same as those who do not believe. So do not join yourselves to them. Good and bad do not belong together. Light and darkness cannot share together. ¹⁵ How can Christ and Belial, the devil, have any agreement? What can a believer have together with a non-believer? ¹⁶ The temple of God cannot have any agreement with idols. And we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live with them and walk with them. And I will be their God. And they will be my people.”^[a]