2 Corinthians 3:1

A Living Letter

3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? ¹ 

2 Corinthians 3:5

3:5 Not that we are adequate ²  in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy ³  is from God,

2 Corinthians 5:20

5:20 Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea ⁴  through us. We plead with you ⁵  on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God!”

2 Corinthians 6:4

6:4 But as God’s servants, ⁶  we have commended ourselves in every way, ⁷  with great endurance, in persecutions, ⁸  in difficulties, in distresses,

2 Corinthians 11:17

11:17 What I am saying with this boastful confidence ⁹  I do not say the way the Lord would. ¹⁰  Instead it is, as it were, foolishness.

[3:1]  ¹ tn The Greek construction anticipates a negative reply (“No, we do not”) which is indicated in the translation by the ‘tag’ at the end, “do we?”

[3:5]  ² tn Or “competent.”

[3:5]  ³ tn Or “competence.”

[5:20]  ³ tn Or “as though God were begging.”

[5:20]  ⁴ tn Or “we beg you.”

[6:4]  ⁴ tn Or “ministers.”

[6:4]  ⁵ tn Or “we have commended ourselves by all things.”

[6:4]  ⁶ tn Or “in trouble and suffering.”

[11:17]  ⁵ tn Grk “with this confidence of boasting.” The genitive καυχήσεως (kauchsew") has been translated as an attributed genitive (the noun in the genitive gives an attribute of the noun modified).

[11:17]  ⁶ tn Or “say with the Lord’s authority.”