Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, 2 Corinthians

Part 1

Produced by Martin Ward

Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, 2 Corinthians

Third Edition 1913

R. F. Weymouth

Book 47 2 Corinthians

001:001 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God-- and our brother Timothy: To the Church of God in Corinth, with all God's people throughout Greece.

001:002 May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

001:003 Heartfelt thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ-- the Father who is full of compassion and the God who gives all comfort.

001:004 He comforts us in our every affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction by means of the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

001:005 For just as we have more than our share of suffering for the Christ, so also through the Christ we have more than our share of comfort.

001:006 But if, on the one hand, we are enduring affliction, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if, on the other hand, we are receiving comfort, it is for your comfort which is produced within you through your patient fortitude under the same sufferings as those which we also are enduring.

001:007 And our hope for you is stedfast; for we know that as you are partners with us in the sufferings, so you are also partners in the comfort.

001:008 For as for our troubles which came upon us in the province of Asia, we would have you know, brethren, that we were exceedingly weighed down, and felt overwhelmed, so that we renounced all hope even of life.

001:009 Nay, we had, as we still have, the sentence of death within our own selves, in order that our confidence may repose, not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead to life.

001:010 He it is who rescued us from so imminent a death, and will do so again; and we have a firm hope in Him that He will also rescue us in all the future,

001:011 while you on your part lend us your aid in entreaty for us, so that from many lips thanksgivings may rise on our behalf for the boon granted to us at the intercession of many.

001:012 For the reason for our boasting is this--the testimony of our own conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, and in reliance not on worldly wisdom but on the gracious help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and above all in our relations with you.

001:013 For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have written before, or from what indeed you already recognize as truth and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end;

001:014 just as some few of you have recognized us as your reason for boasting, even as you will be ours, on the day of Jesus our Lord.

001:015 It was because I entertained this confidence that I intended to visit you before going elsewhere--so that you might receive a twofold proof of God's favour--

001:016 and to pass by way of Corinth into Macedonia. Then my plan was to return from Macedonia to you, and be helped forward by you to Judaea.

001:017 Did I display any vacillation or caprice in this? Or the purposes which I form--do I form them on worldly principles, now crying "Yes, yes," and now "No, no"?

001:018 As certainly as God is faithful, our language to you is not now "Yes" and now "No."

001:019 For Jesus Christ the Son of God--He who was proclaimed among you by us, that is by Silas and Timothy and myself-- did not show Himself a waverer between "Yes" and "No." But it was and always is "Yes" with Him.

001:020 For all the promises of God, whatever their number, have their confirmation in Him; and for this reason through Him also our "Amen" acknowledges their truth and promotes the glory of God through our faith.

001:021 But He who is making us as well as you stedfast through union with the Anointed One, and has anointed us, is God,

001:022 and He has also set His seal upon us, and has put His Spirit into our hearts as a pledge and foretaste of future blessing.

001:023 But as for me, as my soul shall answer for it, I appeal to God as my witness, that it was to spare you pain that I gave up my visit to Corinth.

Part 2

001:024 Not that we want to lord it over you in respect of your faith-- we do, however, desire to help your joy--for in the matter of your faith you are standing firm.

002:001 But, so far as I am concerned, I have resolved not to have a painful visit the next time I come to see you.

002:002 For 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?

002:003 And 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.

002:004 For 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.

002:005 Now 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.

002:006 In the case of such a person the punishment which was inflicted by the majority of you is enough.

002:007 So 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.

002:008 I beg you therefore fully to reinstate him in your love.

002:009 For 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.

002:010 When 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,

002:011 for fear Satan should gain an advantage over us. For we are not ignorant of his devices.

002:012 Now 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,

002:013 yet, obtaining no relief for my spirit because I did not find our brother Titus, I bade them farewell and went on into Macedonia.

002:014 But 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.

002:015 For we are a fragrance of Christ grateful to God in those whom He is saving and in those who are perishing;

002:016 to 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?

002:017 We 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.

003:001 Do you say that this is self-recommendation once more? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

003:002 Our letter of recommendation is yourselves--a letter written on our hearts and everywhere known and read.

003:003 For all can see that you are a letter of Christ entrusted to our care, and written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the ever-living God--and not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts as tablets.

003:004 Such is the confidence which we have through Christ in the presence of God;

003:005 not that of ourselves we are competent to decide anything by our own reasonings, but our competency comes from God.

003:006 It is He also who has made us competent to serve Him in connexion with a new Covenant, which is not a written code but a Spirit; for the written code inflicts death, but the Spirit gives Life.

003:007 If, however, the service that proclaims death--its code being engraved in writing upon stones--came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily on the face of Moses because of the brightness of his face-- a vanishing brightness;

003:008 will not the service of the Spirit be far more glorious?

003:009 For if the service which pronounces doom had glory, far more glorious still is the service which tells of righteousness.

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