2So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. ²If I make you sad, who is going to make me glad? Only you, the one I made sad.

³I wrote what I did for a special reason. When I came, I didn’t want to be troubled by those who should make me glad. I was sure that all of you would share my joy. ⁴I was very troubled when I wrote to you. My heart was sad. My eyes were full of tears. I didn’t want to make you sad. I wanted to let you know that I love you very deeply.

Forgive Those Who Make You Sad

⁵Suppose someone has made us sad. In some ways, he hasn’t made me sad so much as he has made all of you sad. But I don’t want to put this too strongly. ⁶He has been punished because most of you decided he should be. That is enough for him.

⁷Now you should forgive him and comfort him. Then he won’t be sad more than he can stand. ⁸So I’m asking you to tell him again that you still love him.

⁹I wrote to you for a special reason. I wanted to see if you could stand the test. I wanted to see if you could obey everything that was asked of you.

¹⁰Anyone you forgive I also forgive. Was there anything to forgive? If so, I have forgiven it for your benefit, knowing that Christ is watching. ¹¹We don’t want Satan to outsmart us. We know how he does his evil work.

Serving Under the New Covenant

¹²I went to Troas to preach the good news about Christ. There I found that the Lord had opened a door of opportunity for me. ¹³But I still had no peace of mind. I couldn’t find my brother Titus there. So I said good-by to the believers at Troas and went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴Give thanks to God! He always leads us in the winners’ parade because we belong to Christ. Through us, God spreads the knowledge of Christ everywhere like perfume. ¹⁵God considers us to be the sweet smell that Christ is spreading among people who are being saved and people who are dying. ¹⁶To the one, we are the smell of death. To the other, we are the perfume of life. Who is able to do that work?

¹⁷Unlike many people, we aren’t selling God’s word to make money. In fact, it is just the opposite. Because of Christ we speak honestly before God. We speak like people God has sent.

3Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Some people need letters that speak well of them. Do we need those kinds of letters, either to you or from you?

²You yourselves are our letter. You are written on our hearts. Everyone knows you and reads you. ³You make it clear that you are a letter from Christ. You are the result of our work for God. You are a letter written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. You are a letter written not on tablets made out of stone but on human hearts.

⁴Through Christ, we can be sure of this because of our faith in God’s power. ⁵In ourselves we are not able to claim anything for ourselves. The power to do what we do comes from God. ⁶He has given us the power to serve under a new covenant. The covenant is not based on the written Law of Moses. It comes from the Holy Spirit. The written Law kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The Glory of the New Covenant

⁷The Law was written in letters on stone. Even though it was a way of serving God, it led to death. But even that way of serving God came with glory. And even though the glory was fading, the people of Israel couldn’t look at Moses’ face very long.

⁸Since all of that is true, won’t the work of the Holy Spirit be even more glorious? ⁹The Law that sentences people to death is glorious. How much more glorious is the work of the Spirit! His work makes people right with God.

¹⁰The glory of the old covenant is nothing compared with the far greater glory of the new. ¹¹The glory of the old is fading away. How much greater is the glory of the new! It will last forever.

¹²Since we have that kind of hope, we are very bold. ¹³We are not like Moses. He used to cover his face with a veil. That was to keep the people of Israel from looking at his face while the brightness was fading away.

¹⁴But their minds were made stubborn. To this very day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. The veil has not been removed. Only faith in Christ can take it away. ¹⁵To this very day, when the Law of Moses is read, a veil covers the minds of those who hear it.

¹⁶But when anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷Now the Lord is the Holy Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, freedom is also there.

¹⁸Our faces are not covered with a veil. We all display the Lord’s glory. We are being changed to become more like him so that we have more and more glory. And the glory comes from the Lord, who is the Holy Spirit.

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