and through your help to go on into Macedonia and then from Macedonia to come back to you and be helped on our way into Judea by you.

On behalf of such an individual I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except about my weaknesses.

It is necessary to go on boasting. Though it is not profitable, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.

if indeed, after we have put on our heavenly house, we will not be found naked.

So then, even though I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did wrong, or on account of the one who was wronged, but to reveal to you your eagerness on our behalf before God.

This punishment on such an individual by the majority is enough for him,

revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts.

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone,

For in this earthly house we groan, because we desire to put on our heavenly dwelling,

We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair;

Apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxious concern for all the churches.

who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

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

But if the ministry that produced death – carved in letters on stone tablets – came with glory, so that the Israelites could not keep their eyes fixed on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face (a glory which was made ineffective),

He delivered us from so great a risk of death, and he will deliver us. We have set our hope on him that he will deliver us yet again,

You will be enriched in every way so that you may be generous on every occasion, which is producing through us thanksgiving to God,

And in their prayers on your behalf they long for you because of the extraordinary grace God has shown to you.

as you also join in helping us by prayer, so that many people may give thanks to God on our behalf for the gracious gift given to us through the help of many.

So then from now on we acknowledge no one from an outward human point of view. Even though we have known Christ from such a human point of view, now we do not know him in that way any longer.

Therefore we are always full of courage, and we know that as long as we are alive here on earth we are absent from the Lord –