But as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”

by truthful ¹  teaching, ²  by the power of God, with weapons of righteousness both for the right hand and for the left, ³ 

And even if I am unskilled ¹  in speaking, yet I am certainly not so in knowledge. Indeed, we have made this plain to you in everything in every way.

For we are not like so many others, hucksters who peddle the word of God for profit, ¹  but we are speaking in Christ before ²  God as persons of sincerity, ³  as persons sent from God.

because some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but his physical presence is weak ¹  and his speech is of no account.” ² 

Let such a person consider this: What we say ¹  by letters when we are absent, we also are in actions when we are present.

But we have rejected ¹  shameful hidden deeds, ²  not behaving ³  with deceptiveness ⁴  or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God.

In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us ¹  the message of reconciliation.

But as you excel ¹  in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, and in all eagerness and in the love from us that is in you ²  – make sure that you excel ³  in this act of kindness ⁴  too.