II Corinthians 1-3

II Corinthians 1

¹Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the purpose of God, and Timothy the brother, to the church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia:

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

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort;

⁴Who gives us comfort in all our troubles, so that we may be able to give comfort to others who are in trouble, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

⁵For as we undergo more of the pain which Christ underwent, so through Christ does our comfort become greater.

⁶But if we are troubled, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which takes effect through your quiet undergoing of the same troubles which we undergo:

⁷And our hope for you is certain; in the knowledge that as you take part in the troubles, so you will take part in the comfort.

⁸For it is our desire that you may not be without knowledge of our trouble which came on us in Asia, that the weight of it was very great, more than our power, so that it seemed that we had no hope even of life:

⁹Yes, we ourselves have had the answer of death in ourselves, so that our hope might not be in ourselves, but in God who is able to give life to the dead:

¹⁰Who gave us salvation from so great a death: on whom we have put our hope that he will still go on to give us salvation;

¹¹You at the same time helping together by your prayer for us; so that for what has been given to us through a number of persons, praise may go up to God for us from all of them.

¹²For our glory is in this, in the knowledge which we have that our way of life in the world, and most of all in relation to you, has been holy and true in the eyes of God; not in the wisdom of the flesh, but in the grace of God.

¹³For in our letters we say no other things to you, but those which you are reading, and to which you give agreement, and, it is my hope, will go on doing so to the end:

¹⁴Even as you have been ready, in part, to say that we are your glory, in the same way that you are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁵And being certain of this, it was my purpose to come to you before, so that you might have a second grace;

¹⁶And by way of Corinth to go into Macedonia, and from there to come back again to you, so that you might send me on my way to Judaea.

¹⁷If then I had such a purpose, did I seem to be changing suddenly? or am I guided in my purposes by the flesh, saying, Yes, today, and, No, tomorrow?

¹⁸As God is true, our word to you is not Yes and No.

¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we were preaching among you, even I and Silvanus and Timothy, was not Yes and No, but in him is Yes.

²⁰For he is the Yes to all the undertakings of God: and by him all the words of God are made certain and put into effect, to the glory of God through us.

²¹Now he who makes our faith strong together with you, in Christ, and has given us of his grace, is God;

²²And it is he who has put his stamp on us, even the Spirit, as the sign in our hearts of the coming glory.

²³But God is my witness that it was in pity for you that I did not come to Corinth at that time.

²⁴Not that we have authority over your faith, but we are helpers of your joy: for it is faith which is your support.

II Corinthians 2

¹But it was my decision for myself, not to come again to you with sorrow.

²For if I give you sorrow, who then will make me glad, but he who is made sad by me?

³And I said this very thing in my letter, for fear that when I came I might have sorrow from those from whom it was right for me to have joy; being certain of this, that my joy is the joy of you all.

⁴For out of much trouble and pain of heart and much weeping I sent my letter to you; not to give you sorrow, but so that you might see how great is the love which I have to you.

⁵But if anyone has been a cause of sorrow, he has been so, not to me only, but in some measure to all of you (I say this that I may not be over-hard on you).

⁶Let it be enough for such a man to have undergone the punishment which the church put on him;

⁷So that now, on the other hand, it is right for him to have forgiveness and comfort from you, for fear that his sorrow may be over-great.

⁸For which cause my desire is that you will make your love to him clear by your acts.

⁹And for the same reason I sent you a letter so that I might be certain of your desire to do my orders in all things.

¹⁰But if you give forgiveness to anyone, I do the same: for if I have given forgiveness for anything, I have done it because of you, in the person of Christ;

¹¹So that Satan may not get the better of us: for we are not without knowledge of his designs.

¹²Now when I came to Troas for the good news of Christ, and there was an open door for me in the Lord,

¹³I had no rest in my spirit because Titus my brother was not there: so I went away from them, and came into Macedonia.

¹⁴But praise be to God who makes us strong to overcome in Christ, and makes clear through us in every place the value of the knowledge of him.

¹⁵For we are a sweet perfume of Christ to God in those who are getting salvation and in those who are going to destruction;

¹⁶To the one it is a perfume of death to death; to the other a perfume of life to life. And who is enough for such things?

¹⁷For we are not like the great number who make use of the word of God for profit: but our words are true, as from God, being said as before God in Christ.

II Corinthians 3

¹Do we seem to be again attempting to put ourselves in the right? or have we need, as some have, of letters of approval to you or from you?

²You yourselves are our letter, whose writing is in our heart, open for every man's reading and knowledge;

³For you are clearly a letter of Christ, the fruit of our work, recorded not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in stone, but in hearts of flesh.

⁴And this is the certain faith which we have in God through Christ:

⁵Not as if we were able by ourselves to do anything for which we might take the credit; but our power comes from God;

⁶Who has made us able to be servants of a new agreement; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter gives death, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷For if the operation of the law, giving death, recorded in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the eyes of the children of Israel had to be turned away from the face of Moses because of its glory, a glory which was only for a time:

⁸Will not the operation of the Spirit have a much greater glory?

⁹For if the operation of the law, producing punishment, had its glory, how much greater will be the operation of the Spirit causing righteousness?

¹⁰For the glory of the first no longer seems to be glory, because of the greater glory of that which comes after.

¹¹For if the order which was for a time had its glory, much more will the eternal order have its glory.

¹²Having then such a hope, we keep nothing back,

¹³And are not like Moses, who put a veil on his face, so that the children of Israel might not see clearly to the end of the present order of things:

¹⁴But their minds were made hard: for to this very day at the reading of the old agreement the same veil is still unlifted; though it is taken away in Christ.

¹⁵But to this day, at the reading of the law of Moses, a veil is over their heart.

¹⁶But when it is turned to the Lord, the veil will be taken away.

¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there the heart is free.

¹⁸But we all, with unveiled face giving back as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord who is the Spirit.