2 Because of that, I decided not to visit you again at that time. I did not want to make you sad. ² You are the only people who can make me happy. So, if I make you sad, there will be nobody to make me happy. ³ That is why I did not visit you. I wrote that letter to you instead. You are the people who should make me happy. I did not want you to make me sad when I visited you. I felt sure about all of you. I knew that, if I was happy, then all of you would be happy too.

⁴ When I wrote that letter, I was very sad and upset. I cried a lot. I did not want to make you sad. Instead, I wanted you to know that I love you very much.

⁵ Someone among you has done things that have made other people sad. That person has made me sad. But really he has made all of you much more sad than me. I do not want to say more about this than is necessary. ⁶ Most of you have agreed to punish him. That should be enough. ⁷ Now, you should forgive him. You should comfort him. If you do not do that, he may become too sad. He may not be able to think properly. ⁸ So I tell you this: Please show him that you really do love him.

⁹ When I wrote that letter to you, I wanted to know what you would do. I wanted to see if you would do everything that I told you. ¹⁰ When you forgive anyone, I also forgive that person. Whatever bad thing somebody has done, I have Christ's authority to forgive them. And I do it to help you. ¹¹ We do not want Satan to win against us. He is very clever. We know how he likes to cause us to have trouble.

The good news about Christ

¹² I went to Troas city to tell people the good news about Christ.^[a] When I arrived there, I discovered that the Lord had already prepared people to listen. ¹³ But I was not happy in my thoughts because I could not find my friend Titus there. So I said ‘goodbye’ to those people and I travelled on to Macedonia.

¹⁴ But I thank God! He has won against sin, because of what Christ has done. Christ is our leader and we show that he is the winner. We also help people to know about Christ. That knowledge is like a lovely smell that comes to people everywhere. ¹⁵ When we tell people about Christ, we are like a lovely smell that rises up to God. We are like that among the people that God is saving. We are also like that among the people who are dying because they are far from God. ¹⁶ For the people who are dying, we are like a bad smell that brings a message of death. But for the people that God is saving, we are like a lovely smell that brings a message of new life.

Nobody is really good enough to tell such an important message! ¹⁷ Some people even tell God's message because they want to get a lot of money for themselves. But we are not like them. No, God himself has sent us to do this work. And he sees what we are doing. So we are honest and we speak God's message clearly, as Christ's servants should do.