10:1 Now I, Paul, appeal to you 6 personally 7 by the meekness and gentleness 8 of Christ (I who am meek 9 when present among 10 you, but am full of courage 11 toward you when away!) –
4:1 Therefore, since we have this ministry, just as God has shown us mercy, 12 we do not become discouraged. 13 4:2 But we have rejected 14 shameful hidden deeds, 15 not behaving 16 with deceptiveness 17 or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God.
1 tn Or “may also be revealed.”
2 tn Grk “mortal flesh.”
3 tn Grk “we walk.”
4 tn Grk “in the flesh.”
5 tn Grk “according to the flesh.”
6 tn The Greek pronoun (“you”) is plural.
7 tn The word “personally” is supplied to reflect the force of the Greek intensive pronoun αὐτός (autos) at the beginning of the verse.
8 tn Or “leniency and clemency.” D. Walker, “Paul’s Offer of Leniency of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:1): Populist Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment (2 Cor 10:1-13:10)” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1998), argues for this alternative translation for three main reasons: (1) When the two Greek nouns πραΰτης and ἐπιείκεια (prauth" and ejpieikeia) are used together, 90% of the time the nuance is “leniency and clemency.” (2) “Leniency and clemency” has a military connotation, which is precisely what appears in the following verses. (3) 2 Cor 10-13 speaks of Paul’s sparing use of his authority, which points to the nuance of “leniency and clemency.”
9 tn Or “who lack confidence.”
10 tn Or “when face to face with.”
11 tn Or “but bold.”
12 tn Grk “just as we have been shown mercy”; ἠλεήθημεν (hlehqhmen) has been translated as a “divine passive” which is a circumlocution for God as the active agent. For clarity this was converted to an active construction with God as subject in the translation.
13 tn Or “we do not lose heart.”
14 tn L&N 13.156; the word can also mean “to assert opposition to,” thus here “we have denounced” (L&N 33.220).
15 tn Grk “the hidden things [deeds] of shame”; here αἰσχύνης (aiscunh") has been translated as an attributive genitive.
16 tn Or “not conducting ourselves”; Grk “not walking” (a common NT idiom for conduct, way of life, or behavior).
17 tn Or “craftiness.”