II Corinthians 6-8

II Corinthians 6

¹We then, working together with God, make our request to you not to take the grace of God to no purpose.

²(For he says, I have given ear to you at a good time, and I have been your helper in a day of salvation: see, now is the good time; now is the day of salvation):

³Giving no cause for trouble in anything, so that no one may be able to say anything against our work;

⁴But in everything making it clear that we are the servants of God, in quiet strength, in troubles, in need, in sorrow,

⁵In blows, in prisons, in attacks, in hard work, in watchings, in going without food;

⁶In a clean heart, in knowledge, in long waiting, in being kind, in the Holy Spirit, in true love,

⁷In the true word, in the power of God; with the arms of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,

⁸By glory and by shame, by an evil name and a good name; as untrue, and still true;

⁹Unnoted, but still kept fully in mind; as near to death, but still living; as undergoing punishment, but not put to death;

¹⁰As full of sorrow, but ever glad; as poor, but giving wealth to others; as having nothing, but still having all things.

¹¹Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is wide.

¹²It is not our feelings to you which are narrow, but yours to us.

¹³Now to give me back payment of the same sort (I am talking as to my children), let your hearts be wide open to me.

¹⁴Do not keep company with those who have not faith: for what is there in common between righteousness and evil, or between light and dark?

¹⁵And what agreement is there between Christ and the Evil One? or what part has one who has faith with one who has not?

¹⁶And what agreement has the house of God with images? for we are a house of the living God; even as God has said, I will be living among them, and walking with them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.

¹⁷For which cause, Come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and let no unclean thing come near you; and I will take you for myself,

¹⁸And will be a Father to you; and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord, the Ruler of all.

II Corinthians 7

¹Because God, then, will give us such rewards, dear brothers, let us make ourselves clean from all evil of flesh and spirit, and become completely holy in the fear of God.

²Let your hearts be open to us: we have done no man wrong, no man has been damaged by us, we have made no profit out of any man,

³It is not with the purpose of judging you that I say this: for I have said before that you are in our hearts for life and death together.

⁴My words to you are without fear, I am full of pride on account of you: I have great comfort and joy in all our troubles.

⁵For even when we had come into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; there were fightings outside and fears inside.

⁶But God who gives comfort to the poor in spirit gave us comfort by the coming of Titus;

⁷And not by his coming only, but by the comfort which he had in you, while he gave us word of your desire, your sorrow, your care for me; so that I was still more glad.

⁸For though my letter gave you pain, I have no regret for it now, though I had before; for I see that the letter gave you pain, but only for a time.

⁹Now I am glad, not that you had sorrow, but that your sorrow was the cause of a change of heart; for yours was a holy sorrow so that you might undergo no loss by us in anything.

¹⁰For the sorrow which God gives is the cause of salvation through a change of heart, in which there is no reason for grief: but the sorrow of the world is a cause of death.

¹¹For you see what care was produced in you by this very sorrow of yours before God, what clearing of yourselves, what wrath against sin, what fear, what desire, what serious purpose, what punishment. In everything you have made it clear that you are free from sin in this business.

¹²So though I sent you a letter, it was not only because of the man who did the wrong, or because of him to whom the wrong was done, but so that your true care for us might be made clear in the eyes of God.

¹³So we have been comforted: and we had the greater joy in our comfort because of the joy of Titus, for his spirit had been made glad by you all.

¹⁴For I was not put to shame in anything in which I may have made clear to him my pride in you; but as we said nothing to you but what was true, so the good things which I said to Titus about you were seen by him to be true.

¹⁵And his love to you is the more increased by his memory of you all, how you gave way to his authority, and how you took him to your hearts with fear and honour.

¹⁶It gives me great joy to see you answering to my good opinion of you in every way.

II Corinthians 8

¹And now we give you news, brothers, about the grace of God which has been given to the churches of Macedonia;

²How while they were undergoing every sort of trouble, and were in the greatest need, they took all the greater joy in being able to give freely to the needs of others.

³For I give them witness, that as they were able, and even more than they were able, they gave from the impulse of their hearts,

⁴Seriously requesting us that they might have a part in this grace of being servants to the needs of the saints:

⁵And going even farther than our hope, they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us after the purpose of God.

⁶So that we made a request to Titus that, as he had made a start before, so he might make this grace complete in you.

⁷And that as you are full of every good thing, of faith, of the word, of knowledge, of a ready mind, and of love to us, so you may be full of this grace in the same way.

⁸I am not giving you an order, but using the ready mind of others as a test of the quality of your love.

⁹For you see the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how though he had wealth, he became poor on your account, so that through his need you might have wealth.

¹⁰And in this I give my opinion: for it is to your profit, who were the first to make a start a year before, not only to do this, but to make clear that your minds were more than ready to do it.

¹¹Then make the doing of it complete; so that as you had a ready mind, you may give effect to it as you are able.

¹²For if there is a ready mind, a man will have God's approval in the measure of what he has, and not of what he has not.

¹³And I am not saying this so that others may get off free, while the weight comes on you:

¹⁴But so that things may be equal; that from those things of which you have more than enough at the present time their need may be helped, and that if you are in any need they may be a help to you in the same way, making things equal.

¹⁵As it says in the Writings, He who had taken up much had nothing over and he who had little had enough.

¹⁶But praise be to God, who puts the same care for you into the heart of Titus.

¹⁷For while he gladly gave ear to our request, he was interested enough to go to you from the impulse of his heart.

¹⁸And with him we have sent a brother whose praise in the good news has gone through all the churches;

¹⁹And not only so, but he was marked out by the churches to go with us in the grace of this giving which we have undertaken to the glory of the Lord and to make clear that our mind was ready:

²⁰And so that no man might be able to say anything against us in the business of this giving which has been put into our hands:

²¹For the business has been so ordered by us as to have the approval, not only of the Lord, but of men.

²²And we have sent with them our brother, whose ready spirit has been made clear to us at times and in ways without number, but it is now all the more so because of the certain faith which he has in you.

²³If any question comes up about Titus, he is my brother-worker, working with me for you; or about the others, they are the representatives of the churches to the glory of Christ.

²⁴Make clear then to them, as representatives of the churches, the quality of your love, and that the things which we have said about you are true.