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

Comfort in Suffering

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

(as also you have understood us in part), that we are your boast as you also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Triumph in Christ

Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to me by the Lord,

Nevertheless when one 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 liberty.

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

For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.

always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

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

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.

We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.

Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.”

“I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty.”

And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then 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 sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

and not only that, but who was also chosen by the churches to travel with us with this gift, which is administered by us to the glory of the Lord Himself and to show your ready mind,

providing honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.

For even if I should boast somewhat more about our authority, which the Lord gave us for edification and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed—

But “he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.

What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.

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

The Vision of Paradise

It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: