2 Corinthians

Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will, and Brother Timothy, to God’s church at Corinth with all the people of God in all Achaea; 2 grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, 4 who encourages us upon all our distress so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any distress with the encouragement that is given to us ourselves by God, 5 because as the Christ’s sufferings are coming plentifully to us, so through the Christ our encouragement too comes in plentiful measure. 6 And be it that we are distressed, this is for your encouragement and salvation; or be it that we are encouraged, this is for your encouragement, which takes effect in the steadfast endurance of the same sufferings that we too undergo, 7* and our hope is firm for you, knowing as we do that as you are included in the sufferings, so too you are included in the encouragement.

8 For we do not want you to go without the knowledge, brothers, as to our distress in Asia, that we had an extraordinarily hard time, too hard for our powers, so that we had no prospect of even living, 9 but have had in our own selves the answer of death, in order that we may not be confident in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, 10* who delivered us out of that awful death and will do so; on whom we have set our hope. And he will deliver us still, 11* while you cooperate helpfully on our behalf by petition, in order that from many faces thanks for the favor bestowed on us may be given through many on our behalf.

12 For this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience that it was in God’s holiness and candor, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, that we lived the life we did in the world; and very specially in relation to you. 13 For we do not write anything else to you but what you read or even recognize, and we hope will recognize to the full, 14 as you did in part recognize us to be your boast, the same as you are ours on the day of our Lord Jesus.

15* And in this assurance I wanted to come first to you, in order that you might have a second glad time, 16 and to go through to Macedonia by way of you and come from Macedonia to you again and have you see me off for Judea. 17 Wanting to do this, then, did I act capriciously? or is it in the way of flesh that I plan what I plan, so that with me there should be “O yes” and “O no”? 18 But, as God is faithful, our words to you are not yes-and-no. 19 For God’s Son Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you through us, Silvanus and Timothy and me, has not shown himself a yes-and-no, but in him there has been a Yes. 20 For in him is the Yes to as many promises of God as there are; for which reason through him also comes the Amen for glory to God through us. 21 And the one who brings us with you into a settled position in Christ and has anointed us is God, 22* the same who sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as earnest-money.

23* But I call God as witness against my own self that it was out of consideration for you I broke off coming to Corinth. 24 Not that we have any control over your faith, but we are cooperators in your joy; for it is by faith you stand.