³And I wrote this same to you: that I may not, when I come, have sorrow upon sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice: having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.

⁴For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears: not that you should be made sorrowful: but that you might know the charity I have more abundantly towards you.

⁵And if any one have caused grief, he hath not grieved me: but in part, that I may not burden you all.

⁶To him who is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient, which is given by many.

⁷So that on the contrary, you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.

⁸Wherefore, I beseech you that you would confirm your charity towards him.

⁹For to this end also did I write, that I may know the experiment of you, whether you be obedient in all things.

¹⁰And to whom you have pardoned any thing, I also. For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned any thing, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ:

¹¹That we be not overreached by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his devices.

¹²And when I was come to Troas for the gospel of Christ and a door was opened unto me in the Lord,

¹³I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but bidding them farewell, I went into Macedonia.

¹⁴Now thanks be to God, who always maketh us to triumph in Christ Jesus and manifesteth the odour of his knowledge by us in every place.

¹⁵For we are the good odour of Christ unto God, in them that are saved and in them that perish.

¹⁶To the one indeed the odour of death unto death: but to the others the odour of life unto life. And for these things who is so sufficient?

¹⁷For we are not as many, adulterating the word of God: but with sincerity: but as from God, before God, in Christ we speak.

Chapter 3

Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need (as some do) epistles of commendation to you, or from you?

²You are our epistle, written in our hearts, which is known and read by all men:

³Being manifested, that you are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, and written: not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God: not in tables of stone but in the fleshly tables of the heart.

⁴And such confidence we have, through Christ, towards God.

⁵Not that we are sufficient to think any thing of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God.

⁶Who also hath made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter but in the spirit. For the letter killeth: but the spirit quickeneth.

⁷Now if the ministration of death, engraven with letters upon stones, was glorious (so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance), which is made void:

⁸How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather in glory?

⁹For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice aboundeth in glory.

¹⁰For even that which was glorious in this part was not glorified by reason of the glory that excelleth.

¹¹For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is in glory.

¹²Having therefore such hope, we use much confidence.

¹³And not as Moses put a veil upon his face, that the children of Israel might not steadfastly look on the face of that which is made void.

¹⁴But their senses were made dull. For, until this present day, the selfsame veil, in the reading of the old testament, remaineth not taken away (because in Christ it is made void).

¹⁵But even until this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.

¹⁶But when they shall be converted to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.

¹⁷Now the Lord is a Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

¹⁸But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.

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