Chronological

Salutation

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

To the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia:

² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s Thanksgiving After Affliction

³ Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective in enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. ⁷ Our hope for you is steadfast, knowing that as you partake in the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.

⁸ For we would not, brothers, have you ignorant of our troubles which came to us in Asia. We were pressured beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. ⁹ We had the sentence of death in ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. ¹⁰ He delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us. In Him we trust that He will still deliver us, ¹¹ as you help together by praying for us, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift bestowed upon us by means of many persons.

Paul’s Travel Plans Change

¹² For our rejoicing is this: The testimony of our conscience is that we conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you, in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God. ¹³ For we write nothing else to you than what you read or understand. And I trust you will understand even to the end, ¹⁴ as you have understood us in part, that we are yours, boasting even as you are ours on the day of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁵ In this confidence I planned to come to you before, that you might have a second benefit: ¹⁶ to visit you while going to Macedonia, and to come again to you from Macedonia, and then be sent by you on my way to Judea. ¹⁷ Therefore, when I was planning this, did I do this lightly? Or the things that I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, so that I would tell you “Yes, yes” and “No, no”?

¹⁸ But as God is true, we did not tell you “Yes” and “No.” ¹⁹ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by Silas, Timothy, and me, was not “Yes” and “No.” In Him it was “Yes.” ²⁰ For all the promises of God in Him are “Yes,” and in Him “Amen,” to the glory of God through us. ²¹ Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, ²² who also has sealed us and established the guarantee with the Spirit in our hearts.

²³ Moreover I call God as a witness upon my soul, that it is to spare you that I have not yet gone to Corinth. ²⁴ Not that we have dominion over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy, for by faith you stand.

2 But I determined this for myself, that I would not come again to you in sorrow. ² For if I make you sorrowful, who then will there be to make me rejoice, but the one whom I have made sorrowful? ³ I wrote concerning this matter to you, so that when I came, I would not be grieved by those in whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all, that my joy is your joy. ⁴ For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have more abundantly for you.

Forgiveness for the Offender

⁵ But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but to some extent all of you, not to put it too severely. ⁶ This punishment which was inflicted by many on such a man is sufficient. ⁷ So on the contrary, you ought to forgive him and comfort him, lest perhaps he might be swallowed up with excessive sorrow. ⁸ Therefore I ask you to confirm your love toward him. ⁹ For to this end I also wrote, so that I might know that you are proving yourselves by whether you are being obedient in all things. ¹⁰ Whomever you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if I forgave someone anything, for your sakes I forgave it in Christ, ¹¹ lest Satan should take advantage of us. For we are not ignorant of his devices.

Paul’s Anxiety in Troas

¹² Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a 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 taking my leave of them, I went from there into Macedonia.

¹⁴ Now thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph in Christ and through us reveals the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. ¹⁵ For we are to God a sweet fragrance of Christ among those who are saved and among those who perish. ¹⁶ To the one we are the fragrance of death, which brings death, and to the other the fragrance of life, which brings life. Who is sufficient for these things? ¹⁷ For we are not as many are who peddle the word of God. Instead, being sent by God, we sincerely speak in Christ in the sight of God.

Ministers of the New Covenant

3 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, letters of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? ² You are our letter written in our hearts, known and read by all men. ³ For you are prominently declared to be the letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on human tablets of the heart.

⁴ We have such trust through Christ toward God, ⁵ not that we are sufficient in ourselves to take credit for anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, ⁶ who has made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷ If the ministry that brought death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, the glory which was to fade away, ⁸ how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? ⁹ For if the ministry of condemnation is glorious, the ministry of righteousness much more exceeds it in glory. ¹⁰ Even that which was made glorious had no glory in comparison to the glory that excels. ¹¹ For if that which fades was glorious, that which remains is much more glorious.

¹² Seeing then that we have such hope, we speak with great boldness, ¹³ not as Moses, who put a veil over his face, so that the children of Israel could not look intently at the end of what was fading away. ¹⁴ Instead, their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the old covenant, the veil which was done away with in Christ. ¹⁵ But even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is in their hearts. ¹⁶ Nevertheless when anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸ But we all, seeing the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.

Treasure in Earthen Vessels

4 Therefore, since we have this ministry through the mercy we have received, we do not lose heart. ² But we have renounced the secret things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by expressing the truth and commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. ³ But if our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost. ⁴ 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 on them. ⁵ For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, 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, the excellency of the power being from God and not from ourselves. ⁸ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ and always carrying around in the body the death of the Lord Jesus, that also the life of Jesus might be expressed in our bodies. ¹¹ For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that also the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh. ¹² So then, death works in us, but life in you.

¹³ We have the same spirit of faith. As it is written, “I believed, and therefore I have spoken.”^[a] So we also believe and therefore speak, ¹⁴ knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us through Jesus and will present us with you. ¹⁵ All these things are for your sakes, so that the abundant grace through the thanksgiving of many might overflow to the glory of God.

Living by Faith

¹⁶ For this reason we do not lose heart: Even though our outward man is perishing, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ Our light affliction, which lasts but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, ¹⁸ while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.