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.

003:010 For, in fact, that which was once resplendent in glory has no glory at all in this respect, that it pales before the glory which surpasses it.