Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

just as you also partially did understand us, that we are your reason to be proud as you also are ours, on the day of our Lord Jesus.

Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord,

but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants on account of Jesus.

knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus, and will present us with you.

Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—

but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade people, but we are well known to God; and I hope that we are also well known in your consciences.

Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you.

And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.

and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

and not only that, but he has also been appointed by the churches to travel with us in this gracious work, which is being administered by us for the glory of the Lord Himself, and to show our readiness,

for we have regard for what is honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of other people.

For if I boast somewhat more about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be put to shame,

But the one who boasts is to boast in the Lord.

For it is not the one who commends himself that is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

What I am saying, I am not saying as the Lord would, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.

Paul’s Vision

Boasting is necessary, though it is not beneficial; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.

Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me.