And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty.

For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone.

And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Then, when I arrive, I will send those whom you approve with letters of explanation to carry your gift to Jerusalem.

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,

who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.

I do not mean that we rule over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy, because by faith you stand firm.

But if anyone has caused sadness, he has not saddened me alone, but to some extent (not to exaggerate) he has saddened all of you as well.

For this reason also I wrote you: to test you to see if you are obedient in everything.

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?

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

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

Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

Thus we are full of courage and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,” says the All-Powerful Lord.

And they did this not just as we had hoped, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and to us by the will of God.

We did this as a precaution so that no one should blame us in regard to this generous gift we are administering.

If there is any question about Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker among you; if there is any question about our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, a glory to Christ.

For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, because I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.