Greeting
2 Corinthians 1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our sibling, to the church of God in Corinth, with all the saints throughout Achaia: Grace and peace to y’all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Comfort Received and Given
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all comfort. Hᴇ comforts us in all our oppressions to enable us to comfort those who are experiencing all their oppressions, using the comfort through which we are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also our comfort overflows through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for y’all’s comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for y’all’s comfort, which produces in y’all the patient endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for y’all is firm, because we know that just as y’all are partners in our sufferings, y’all will also be partners in our comfort.
Now we don’t want y’all to be uninformed, siblings, about our oppression that happened in Asia: that we were incredibly burdened, beyond our strength, so much that we even despaired of life itself. Indeed, we ourselves felt that we had been given the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. Hᴇ delivered us from that terrible risk of death, and ʜᴇ deliver us again. We have set our hope that ʜᴇ will continue to deliver us, as y’all join in helping us through your* prayers. Then many faces will give thanks for the gracious gift given to us through the prayers of many.
Integrity in the Midst of Change
Now this is our boast: the testimony of our conscience is that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward y’all, with godly integrity and sincerity, not by fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God. For don’t we write to y’all anything y’all can’t read or understand. I hope y’all will come to understand completely, just as y’all have already understood us partially, that we are y’all’s reason for boasting just as y’all are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.
In this confidence, I had planned to come to y’all first so that y’all would receive a second benefit, and after visiting y’all to go on to into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to return to y’all, and then be helped by y’all on my journey to Judea. Now when I planned this was I being fickle? Or did I plan these things in a fleshly way so that within me there was both “Yes, yes” and “No, no?” But as God is faithful, our word toward y’all is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among y’all— Silvanus, Timothy, and I—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it is always “Yes.” For every promise of God is a “Yes” in him. And so through him is an “Amen” to the glory of God through us.
Now it is God who establishes us with y’all in Christ. Hᴇ also anointed us, put his seal on us, and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as down payment.
I invoke God as a witness to my soul, that it was to spare y’all that I didn’t come to Corinth. Not that we lord it over y’all’s faith, but are colaborers with y’all for your* joy, because it is by faith y’all stand firm.