Beginning

5 We know that our body—the tent we live in here on earth—will be destroyed. But when that happens, God will have a house for us to live in. It will not be a house made by men. It will be a home in heaven that will last forever. ² But now we are tired of this body. We want God to give us our heavenly home. ³ It will clothe us, and we will not be naked. ⁴ While we live in this body, we have burdens, and we complain. We do not want to be naked. We want to be clothed with our heavenly home. Then this body that dies will be fully covered with life. ⁵ This is what God made us for. And he has given us the Spirit to be a guarantee for this new life.

⁶ So we always have courage. We know that while we live in this body, we are away from the Lord. ⁷ We live by what we believe, not by what we can see. ⁸ So I say that we have courage. And we really want to be away from this body and be at home with the Lord. ⁹ Our only goal is to please God. We want to please him whether we live here or there. ¹⁰ For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. Each one will receive what he should get—good or bad—for the things he did when he lived in the earthly body.

Becoming Friends with God

¹¹ We know what it means to fear the Lord. So we try to help people accept the truth. God knows what we really are. And I hope that in your hearts you know, too. ¹² We are not trying to prove ourselves to you again. But we are telling you about ourselves, so you will be proud of us. Then you will have an answer for those who are proud about things that can be seen. They do not care about what is in the heart. ¹³ If we are out of our minds, it is for God. If we have our right mind, then it is for you. ¹⁴ The love of Christ controls us. Because we know that One died for all. So all have died. ¹⁵ Christ died for all so that those who live would not continue to live for themselves. He died for them and was raised from death so that they would live for him.

¹⁶ From this time on we do not think of anyone as the world does. It is true that in the past we thought of Christ as the world thinks. But we no longer think of him in that way. ¹⁷ If anyone belongs to Christ, then he is made new. The old things have gone; everything is made new! ¹⁸ All this is from God. Through Christ, God made peace between us and himself. And God gave us the work of bringing everyone into peace with him. ¹⁹ I mean that God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself. In Christ, God did not hold the world guilty of its sins. And he gave us this message of peace. ²⁰ So we have been sent to speak for Christ. It is as if God is calling to you through us. We speak for Christ when we beg you to be at peace with God. ²¹ Christ had no sin. But God made him become sin. God did this for us so that in Christ we could become right with God.

6 We are workers together with God. So we beg you: Do not let the grace that you received from God be for nothing. ² God says,

I tell you that the “right time” is now. The “day of salvation” is now.

³ We do not want anyone to find anything wrong with our work. So we do nothing that will be a problem for anyone. ⁴ But in every way we show that we are servants of God: in accepting many hard things, in troubles, in difficulties, and in great problems. ⁵ We are beaten and thrown into prison. Men become upset and fight us. We work hard, and sometimes we get no sleep or food. ⁶ We show that we are servants of God by living a pure life, by our understanding, by our patience, and by our kindness. We show this by the Holy Spirit, by true love, ⁷ by speaking the truth, and by God’s power. We use our right living to defend ourselves against everything. ⁸ Some people honor us, but other people shame us. Some people say good things about us, but other people say bad things. Some people say we are liars, but we speak the truth. ⁹ We are not known, but we are well-known. We seem to be dying, but look—we continue to live. We are punished, but we are not killed. ¹⁰ We have much sadness, but we are always rejoicing. We are poor, but we are making many people rich in faith. We have nothing, but really we have everything.

¹¹ We have spoken freely to you in Corinth. We have opened our hearts to you. ¹² Our feelings of love for you have not stopped. It is you that have stopped your feelings of love for us. ¹³ I speak to you as if you were my children. Do to us as we have done—open your hearts to us.

Warning About Non-Christians

¹⁴ You are not the same as those who do not believe. So do not join yourselves to them. Good and bad do not belong together. Light and darkness cannot share together. ¹⁵ How can Christ and Belial, the devil, have any agreement? What can a believer have together with a non-believer? ¹⁶ The temple of God cannot have any agreement with idols. And we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live with them and walk with them. And I will be their God. And they will be my people.”^[a]

7 Dear friends, we have these promises from God. So we should make ourselves pure—free from anything that makes body or soul unclean. We should try to become perfect in the way we live, because we respect God.

Paul’s Joy

² Open your hearts to us. We have not done wrong to anyone. We have not ruined the faith of any person, and we have cheated no one. ³ I do not say this to blame you. I told you before that we love you so much that we would live or die with you. ⁴ I feel very sure of you. I am very proud of you. You give me much comfort. And in all of our troubles I have great joy.

⁵ When we came into Macedonia, we had no rest. We found trouble all around us. We had fighting on the outside and fear on the inside. ⁶ But God comforts those who are troubled. And God comforted us when Titus came. ⁷ We were comforted by his coming and also by the comfort that you gave him. Titus told us about your wish to see me. He told us that you are very sorry for what you did. And he told me about your great care for me. When I heard this, I was much happier.

⁸ Even if the letter I wrote you made you sad, I am not sorry I wrote it. I know it made you sad, and I was sorry for that. But it made you sad only for a short time. ⁹ Now I am happy, but not because you were made sad. I am happy because your sorrow made you change your hearts. You became sad in the way God wanted you to. So you were not hurt by us in any way. ¹⁰ Being sorry in the way God wants makes a person change his heart and life. This leads to salvation, and we cannot be sorry for that. But the kind of sorrow the world has will bring death. ¹¹ You had the kind of sorrow God wanted you to have. Now see what this sorrow has brought you: It has made you very serious. It made you want to prove that you were not wrong. It made you angry and afraid. It made you want to see me. It made you care. It made you want the right thing to be done. You proved that you were not guilty in any part of the problem. ¹² I wrote that letter, but not because of the one who did the wrong. And it was not written because of the person who was hurt. But I wrote the letter so that you could see, before God, the great care that you have for us. ¹³ That is why we were comforted.

We were very comforted. And we were even happier to see that Titus was so happy. All of you made him feel much better. ¹⁴ I bragged to Titus about you. And you showed that I was right. Everything that we said to you was true. And you have proved that what we bragged about to Titus is true. ¹⁵ And his love for you is stronger when he remembers that you were all ready to obey. You welcomed him with respect and fear. ¹⁶ I am very happy that I can trust you fully.

Christian Giving

8 And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God gave the churches in Macedonia. ² They have been tested by great troubles. And they are very poor. But they gave much because of their great joy. ³ I can tell you that they gave as much as they were able. They gave even more than they could afford. No one told them to do it. ⁴ But they asked us again and again—they begged us to let them share in this service for God’s people. ⁵ And they gave in a way that we did not expect: They first gave themselves to the Lord and to us. This is what God wants. ⁶ So we asked Titus to help you finish this special work of grace. He is the one who started this work. ⁷ You are rich in everything—in faith, in speaking, in knowledge, in truly wanting to help, and in the love you learned from us.^[b] And so we want you to be rich also in this gift of giving.

⁸ I am not commanding you to give. But I want to see if your love is true love. I do this by showing you that others really want to help. ⁹ You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know that Christ was rich, but for you he became poor. Christ did this so that by his being poor you might become rich.

¹⁰ This is what I think you should do: Last year you were the first to want to give. And you were the first who gave. ¹¹ So now finish the work that you started. Then your “doing” will be equal to your “wanting to do.” Give from what you have. ¹² If you want to give, your gift will be accepted. Your gift will be judged by what you have, not by what you do not have. ¹³ We do not want you to have troubles while other people are at ease. We want everything to be equal. ¹⁴ At this time you have plenty. What you have can help others who are in need. Then later, when they have plenty, they can help you when you are in need. Then all will be equal. ¹⁵ As it is written in the Scriptures, “The person who gathered more did not have too much. The person who gathered less did not have too little.”^[c]

Titus and His Companions

¹⁶ I thank God because he gave Titus the same love for you that I have. ¹⁷ Titus accepted what we asked him to do. He wanted very much to go to you. This was his own idea. ¹⁸ We are sending with him the brother who is praised by all the churches. This brother is praised because of his service in preaching the Good News. ¹⁹ Also, this brother was chosen by the churches to go with us when we deliver this gift of money. We are doing this service to bring glory to the Lord and to show that we really want to help.

²⁰ We are being careful so that no one will criticize us about the way we are handling this large gift. ²¹ We are trying to do what is right. We want to do what the Lord accepts as right and also what people think is right.

²² Also, we are sending with them our brother who is always ready to help. He has proved this to us in many ways. And he wants to help even more now because he has much faith in you.

²³ Now about Titus—he is my partner who is working with me to help you. And about the other brothers—they are sent from the churches, and they bring glory to Christ. ²⁴ So show these men that you really have love. Show them why we are proud of you. Then all the churches can see it.

Help for Fellow Christians

9 I really do not need to write to you about this help for God’s people. ² I know that you want to help. I have been bragging about this to the people in Macedonia. I have told them that you in Southern Greece have been ready to give since last year. And your wanting to give has made most of them here ready to give also. ³ But I am sending the brothers to you. I do not want our bragging about you in this to be for nothing. I want you to be ready, as I said you would be. ⁴ If any of the people from Macedonia come with me and find that you are not ready, we will be ashamed. We will be ashamed that we were so sure of you. (And you will be ashamed, too!) ⁵ So I thought that I should ask these brothers to go to you before we come. They will finish getting in order the gift you promised. Then the gift will be ready when we come, and it will be a gift you wanted to give—not a gift that you hated to give.

⁶ Remember this: The person who plants a little will have a small harvest. But the person who plants a lot will have a big harvest. ⁷ Each one should give, then, what he has decided in his heart to give. He should not give if it makes him sad. And he should not give if he thinks he is forced to give. God loves the person who gives happily. ⁸ And God can give you more blessings than you need. Then you will always have plenty of everything. You will have enough to give to every good work. ⁹ It is written in the Scriptures:

¹⁰ God is the One who gives seed to the farmer. And he gives bread for food. And God will give you all the seed you need and make it grow. He will make a great harvest from your goodness. ¹¹ God will make you rich in every way so that you can always give freely. And your giving through us will cause many to give thanks to God. ¹² This service that you do helps the needs of God’s people. It is also bringing more and more thanks to God. ¹³ This service you do is a proof of your faith. Many people will praise God because of it. They will praise God because you follow the Good News of Christ—the gospel you say you believe. They will praise God because you freely share with them and with all others. ¹⁴ And when they pray, they will wish they could be with you. They will feel this because of the great grace that God has given you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his gift that is too wonderful to explain.