Reaffirm Your Love

1But, so far as I am concerned, I have resolved not to have a painful visit the next time I come to see you. 2For if I of all men give you pain, who then is there to gladden my heart, but the very persons to whom I give pain? 3And I write this to you in order that when I come I may not receive pain from those who ought to give me joy, confident as I am as to all of you that my joy is the joy of you all. 4For with many tears I write to you, and in deep suffering and depression of spirit, not in order to grieve you, but in the hope of showing you how brimful my heart is with love for you.

5Now if any one has caused sorrow, it has been caused not so much to me, as in some degree—for I have no wish to exaggerate—to all of you. 6In the case of such a person the punishment which was inflicted by the majority of you is enough. 7So that you may now take the opposite course, and forgive him rather and comfort him, for fear he should perhaps be driven to despair by his excess of grief. 8I beg you therefore fully to reinstate him in your love. 9For in writing to you I have also this object in view—to discover by experience whether you are prepared to be obedient in every respect. 10When you forgive a man an offence I also forgive it; for in fact what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has always been for your sakes in the presence of Christ, 11for fear Satan should gain an advantage over us. For we are not ignorant of his devices.

Triumph in Christ

12Now when I came into the Troad to spread there the Good News about the Christ, even though in the Lord's providence a door stood open before me, 13yet, obtaining no relief for my spirit because I did not find our brother Titus, I bade them farewell and went on into Macedonia.

14But to God be the thanks who in Christ ever heads our triumphal procession, and by our hands waves in every place that sweet incense, the knowledge of Him. 15For we are a fragrance of Christ grateful to God in those whom He is saving and in those who are perishing; 16to the last-named an odor of death predictive of death, and to the others an odor of life predictive of life. And for such service as this who is competent? 17We are; for, unlike most teachers, we are not fraudulent hucksters of God's Message; but with transparent motives, as commissioned by God, in God's presence and in communion with Christ, so we speak.