²³ Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth.

²⁰ Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.

²¹ What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?

⁹ For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;

¹⁰ Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.

² I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare:

⁸ For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

²⁰ For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:

⁶ And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

⁷ Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? if any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.

⁸ For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed:

⁹ That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.

¹⁰ For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.

¹¹ Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.

²⁰ Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.