Book of Common Prayer

He explains the reason for his absence. He exhorts them to forgive the man who was fallen, and to receive him again with love.

²³ I call God as a witness to my soul that it was to favour you that I did not go any more to Corinth. ²⁴ Not that we are lords over your faith, but are helpers of your joy. 2 ¹ For by faith you stand. But I determined in myself that I would not come again to you in heaviness. ² For if I make you sorrowful, who is it that should make me glad, but the same who are made sorrowful by me? ³ And I wrote this same epistle to you lest, if I went, I should be made sad by those of whom I ought to rejoice. Certainly this confidence I have in you all: that my joy is the joy of you all. ⁴ For in great affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears – not to make you sorrowful, but so that you might perceive the love that I have most specially for you.

⁵ But if any man has caused grief, he has not grieved me but in part – lest I should overburden you all. ⁶ It is enough for the same man that he was rebuked by many. So now, instead, you ought to forgive him, and comfort him, ⁷ lest that same person should be swallowed up with overmuch heaviness. ⁸ Therefore I exhort you, so that love may have the power over him.

⁹ For this reason also I wrote: to know the proof of you, whether you would be obedient in all things.

¹⁰ Whomever you forgive for anything, I forgive also. And if I forgive a person anything, I forgive it for your sakes in the place of Christ, ¹¹ lest Satan should get the advantage of us. For his devices are not unknown to us.

¹² When I had come to Troas for the sake of Christ’s gospel (and a great door was opened to me by the Lord), ¹³ I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother. So I took my leave of them and went away into Macedonia – ¹⁴ thanks be to God, who always gives us the victory in Christ, and opens the savour of the knowledge of him by us in every place. ¹⁵ For we are for God the sweet savour of Christ, both among those who are saved and also among those who are perishing. ¹⁶ To the one part we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other part we are the savour of life unto life.

And who is fit for these things? ¹⁷ For we are not as many are, who tamper with the word of God. But it is out of pureness, and by the power of God, and in the sight of God, that we speak in Christ.

The loving mercy of God is openly seen in the parables of the hundredth sheep and of the son that was lost.

15 Then all the publicans and sinners sought him out, in order to hear him. ² And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, He receives sinners into his company, and eats with them.

¹¹ And he said, A certain man had two sons, ¹² and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the part of the goods that belongs to me. And he divided the substance of his wealth between them. ¹³ And not long after, the younger son gathered all that he had together, and took his journey into a far country. And there he wasted his goods with riotous living. ¹⁴ And when he had spent all that he had, there arose a great dearth throughout all that same land, and he began to be in want. ¹⁵ And he went and attached himself to a citizen of that same country, who sent him to his field to keep his swine. ¹⁶ And he would gladly have filled his belly with the pods that the swine ate, but no man gave to him.

¹⁷ Then he came to himself and said, How many hired servants at my father’s have bread enough, and I am dying of hunger? ¹⁸ I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, ¹⁹ and am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

²⁰ And he arose and went to his father. And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. ²¹ And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son. ²² But his father said to his servants, Bring forth that best garment and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. ²³ And bring here the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry. ²⁴ For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is now found. And they began to be merry.

²⁵ The elder brother was in the field, and when he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing, ²⁶ and called one of his servants and asked what those things meant. ²⁷ And the servant said to him, Your brother is come, and your father had the fatted calf killed, because he has received him safe and sound.

²⁸ And the elder brother was angry and would not go in. Then his father came out and entreated him. ²⁹ He answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years I have served you, and not once broken your commandment, and yet you never gave me so much as a kid to make merry with my friends. ³⁰ But as soon as this your son comes, who has devoured your goods with harlots, you have for his pleasure killed the fatted calf!

³¹ And the father said to him, Son, you were always with me, and all that I have is yours. ³² It was right to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found.