Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

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.