Beginning

The consolation of God in trouble. The love of Paul toward the Corinthians, and his reason for not going to them earlier.

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and brother Timothy.

To the congregation of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia. ² Grace be with you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

³ Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our tribulation, insomuch that we are able to comfort others who are troubled, in whatsoever tribulation it may be, with the same comfort that we ourselves are comforted with by God. ⁵ For as the afflictions of Christ are plentiful in us, so also is our consolation plentiful by Christ.

⁶ Whether we are troubled regarding your consolation and salvation, which salvation shows her power in that you suffer the same afflictions that we also suffer, or whether we are comforted regarding your consolation and salvation, ⁷ yet our hope is steadfast for you, inasmuch as we know that as you have your part in afflictions, so shall you be partakers of consolation.

⁸ Brethren, I would not have you unaware of the trouble that happened to us in Asia. For we were grieved out of measure passing strength, so greatly that we despaired even of life. ⁹ Also, we received an answer of death in ourselves, and that because we should not put our trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead to life again, ¹⁰ and who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver. On whom we trust that yet hereafter he will deliver, ¹¹ by the help of your prayer for us, so that by reason of many deliverances thanks may be given by many for us, for the grace given to us.

¹² Our assurance is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in sincerity and godly purity, and not in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God we have conducted ourselves in the world, and most of all toward you. ¹³ We write no other things to you than what you read and also know. Yea and I trust you will find us to the end ¹⁴ just as you have found us so far. For we are your delight and joy, even as you are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁵ And in this confidence I was minded the other time to have gone to you, so that you might have had yet one pleasure more, ¹⁶ and to have passed by you on the way to Macedonia, and to have come again out of Macedonia to you, and to have been led on my way toward Judea by you. ¹⁷ When I was so minded, was it lightly? Or do I think carnally the things that I think, such that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay?

¹⁸ God is faithful. For our preaching to you was not yea and nay. ¹⁹ For God’s Son Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us (that is to say, by me and Silvanus and Timothy) was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. ²⁰ For all the promises of God in him are yea, and are in him Amen, to the laud of God through us. ²¹ For it is God who established us and you in Christ, and has anointed us; ²² who has also sealed us, and has given the earnest of the Spirit into our hearts.

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.

Paul praises the preaching of the gospel above the preaching of the law.

3 We begin to praise ourselves again. Do we, like some others, need letters of recommendation to you? or letters of recommendation from you? ² You are our letter written in our hearts, which is understood and read by all people, ³ in that it is known that you are the epistle of Christ through our work – and written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, and not in tablets of stone, but in fleshly tablets of the heart.

⁴ Such confidence we have through Christ in God. ⁵ It is not that we are competent in and of ourselves, so as to think a good thought, as it were, by ourselves. But our ability comes from God, ⁶ who has made us able to minister the new testament – not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷ If the ministration of death through the letters figured in stones was so glorious that the children of Israel could not behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance (which glory nevertheless is done away with), ⁸ why shall not the ministration of the Spirit be much more glorious? ⁹ For if the ministering of condemnation is glorious, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. ¹⁰ For without doubt, that which was there glorified is not once glorified in relation to this surpassing glory. ¹¹ So then, if that which is destroyed was glorious, much more will that which remains be glorious.

¹² Seeing then that we have such confidence, we speak boldly, ¹³ and do not do as Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not see the purpose served by that which is abolished. ¹⁴ But their minds were blinded. For until this day, the same covering remains unremoved in the old testament when they read it, which in Christ is put away. ¹⁵ But even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil hangs before their hearts. ¹⁶ Nevertheless, when they turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.

¹⁷ The Lord no doubt is a Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸ And we all behold the glory of the Lord with his face revealed, and are changed into his likeness from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord.

A true preacher is diligent. He does not corrupt the word of God. He does not preach himself, but seeks the honour of Christ – yea though it be at the risk of his life.

4 Therefore, seeing that we have such an office, even as mercy has come on us, we faint not, ² but have cast from us the cloaks of dishonesty, and do not walk in craftiness. Neither do we corrupt the word of God, but walk in open truth, and appeal to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. ³ If our gospel be yet hid, it is hid among those who are lost, ⁴ in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

⁵ For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus to be the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For it is God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, which has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing power of it may be seen to be of God, and not of us. ⁸ We are troubled on every side, yet we are not without means. We are in poverty, but not utterly bereft. ⁹ We are persecuted, but are not forsaken. We are cast down, nevertheless we do not perish. ¹⁰ And we always bear in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus so that the life of Jesus may appear in our bodies. ¹¹ For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life also of Jesus may appear in our mortal flesh. ¹² So then, death works in us, and life in you.

¹³ Seeing, then, that we have the same spirit of faith as is written of – I believed, and therefore I have spoken – we also believe, and therefore speak. ¹⁴ For we know that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up also by the means of Jesus, and will set us with you. ¹⁵ For I do all things for your sakes, so that the abundant grace, through thanks given by many, may redound to the glory of God.

¹⁶ And so we are not wearied, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our exceeding tribulation, which is momentary and light, prepares an exceeding and an eternal weight of glory for us, ¹⁸ while we look not on the things that are seen, but on the things which are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen, are eternal.