If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Paul’s Change of Plans

Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.

But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us,

set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.

For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved?

The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient.

To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

The Greater Glory of the New Covenant

Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was,

If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!

And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.

But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.

Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.

But whenever anyone 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.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.