¹This third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every matter be established. ²I have declared beforehand, and I say beforehand as present the second time, and now absent, to those that have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare. ³Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, (who is not weak towards you, but is powerful among you, ⁴for if indeed he has been crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power; for indeed we are weak in him, but we shall live with him by God’s power towards you,) ⁵examine your own selves if ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: do ye not recognise yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed ye be reprobates? ⁶Now I hope that ye will know that we are not reprobates.

⁷But we pray to God that ye may do nothing evil; not that we may appear approved, but that ye may do what is right, and we be as reprobates. ⁸For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. ⁹For we rejoice when we may be weak and ye may be powerful. But this also we pray for, your perfecting. ¹⁰On this account I write these things being absent, that being present I may not use severity according to the authority which the Lord has given me for building up, and not for overthrowing.

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