Introduction

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Timothy, To the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are throughout Achaia:

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,

who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,

Paul’s Integrity

For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you.

But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no.

For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not yes and no, but has been yes in Him.

For as many as the promises of God are, in Him they are yes; therefore through Him also is our Amen to the glory of God through us.

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,

But I call God as witness to my soul, that it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us reveals the fragrance of the knowledge of Him in every place.

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing:

For we are not like the many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.

revealing yourselves, that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ.

Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,

but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in trickery nor distorting the word of God, but by the open proclamation of the truth commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in the sight of God.

in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;

For all things are for your sakes, so that grace, having spread to more and more people, will cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

The Temporal and Eternal

For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens.

Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge.

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.