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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