¹Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ by God’s will, and the brother Timotheus, to the assembly of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia. ²Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions, and God of all encouragement; ⁴who encourages us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to encourage those who are in any tribulation whatever, through the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged of God. ⁵Because, even as the sufferings of the Christ abound towards us, so through the Christ does our encouragement also abound. ⁶But whether we are in tribulation, it is for your encouragement and salvation, wrought in the endurance of the same sufferings which we also suffer,

⁷(and our hope for you is sure;) or whether we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement and salvation: knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so also of the encouragement. ⁸For we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, as to our tribulation which happened to us in Asia, that we were excessively pressed beyond our power, so as to despair even of living. ⁹But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; ¹⁰who has delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver; in whom we confide that he will also yet deliver; ¹¹ye also labouring together by supplication for us that the gift towards us, through means of many persons, may be the subject of the thanksgiving of many for us.

¹²For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity before God, (not in fleshly wisdom but in God’s grace,) we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly towards you. ¹³For we do not write other things to you but what ye well know and recognise; and I hope that ye will recognise to the end, ¹⁴even as also ye have recognised us in part, that we are your boast, even as ye are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁵And with this confidence I purposed to come to you previously, that ye might have a second favour; ¹⁶and to pass through to Macedonia by you, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be set forward by you to Judaea. ¹⁷Having therefore this purpose, did I then use lightness? Or what I purpose, do I purpose according to flesh, that there should be with me yea yea, and nay nay? ¹⁸Now God is faithful, that our word to you is not yea and nay. ¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, he who has been preached by us among you (by me and Silvanus and Timotheus), did not become yea and nay, but yea is in him. ²⁰For whatever promises of God there are, in him is the yea, and in him the amen, for glory to God by us. ²¹Now he that establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, ²²who also has sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. ²³But I call God to witness upon my soul that to spare you I have not yet come to Corinth. ²⁴Not that we rule over your faith, but are fellow-workmen of your joy: for by faith ye stand.

Chapter 2

¹But I have judged this with myself, not to come back to you in grief. ²For if I grieve you, who also is it that gladdens me, if not he that is grieved through me? ³And I have written this very letter to you, that coming I may not have grief from those from whom I ought to have joy; trusting in you all that my joy is that of you all. ⁴For out of much tribulation and distress of heart I wrote to you, with many tears; not that ye may be grieved, but that ye may know the love which I have very abundantly towards you.

⁵But if any one has grieved, he has grieved, not me, but in part (that I may not overcharge you) all of you. ⁶Sufficient to such a one is this rebuke which has been inflicted by the many; ⁷so that on the contrary ye should rather shew grace and encourage, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with excessive grief. ⁸Wherefore I exhort you to assure him of your love. ⁹For to this end also I have written, that I might know, by putting you to the test, if as to everything ye are obedient. ¹⁰But to whom ye forgive anything, I also; for I also, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sakes in the person of Christ; ¹¹that we might not have Satan get an advantage against us, for we are not ignorant of his thoughts.

¹²Now when I came to Troas for the publication of the glad tidings of the Christ, a door also being opened to me in the Lord, ¹³I had no rest in my spirit at not finding Titus my brother; but bidding them adieu, I came away to Macedonia. ¹⁴But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ, and makes manifest the odour of his knowledge through us in every place. ¹⁵For we are a sweet odour of Christ to God, in the saved and in those that perish: ¹⁶to the one an odour from death unto death, but to the others an odour from life unto life; and who is sufficient for these things? ¹⁷For we do not, as the many, make a trade of the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, before God, we speak in Christ.

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