2 Corinthians 1–2

Salutation

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God that is in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:^*

²Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.^*

Paul’s Thanksgiving after Affliction

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation,^{* 4}who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.^{* 6}If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. ⁷Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.

⁸We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself.^{* 9}Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. ¹⁰He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us;^a on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again,^{* 11}as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many may give thanks on our^b behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.^*

The Postponement of Paul’s Visit

¹²Indeed, this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with holiness^c and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God—and all the more toward you.^{* 13}For we write you nothing other than what you can read and also understand; I hope you will understand until the end—¹⁴as you have already understood us in part—that on the day of the Lord Jesus we are your boast even as you are our boast.^*

¹⁵Since I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double favor;^{d* 16}I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on to Judea.^{* 17}Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards,^e ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? ¹⁸As surely as God is faithful, our word to you is not^f “Yes and No.” ¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.”^{* 20}For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God.^{* 21}But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us,^{* 22}who has put his seal on us and given^g us his Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.^*

²³But I call on God as witness against me: it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.^{* 24}I do not mean to imply that we lord it over your faith; rather, we are workers with you for your joy because you stand firm in faith.^*

²So I made up my mind not to make another visit that causes you grief.^{* 2}For if I cause you grief, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have grieved? ³And I wrote as I did, so that when I came, I might not suffer grief from those who should have made me rejoice, for I am confident about all of you, that my joy would be the joy of all of you.^{* 4}For I wrote you out of much distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you grief but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

Forgiveness for the Offender

⁵But if anyone has caused grief, he has caused it not to me but to some extent—not to exaggerate it—to all of you. ⁶This punishment by the majority is enough for such a person;^{* 7}so now instead you should forgive and console him, so that he may not be overwhelmed by even worse grief. ⁸So I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. ⁹I wrote for this reason: to test you and to know whether you are obedient in everything.^{* 10}Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. In fact, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ. ¹¹And we do this so that we may not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs.

Paul’s Anxiety in Troas

¹²When I came to Troas to proclaim the good news^h of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord,^{* 13}but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said farewell to them and went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.^{i 15}For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing:^{* 16}to the one group a fragrance from death^j to death, to the other a fragrance from life^k to life. Who is qualified for these things?^{* 17}For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many,^l but as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God, we are speaking in Christ before God.^*