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.

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

but I was let down in a rope-basket through a window in the city wall, and escaped his hands.

For our reason for confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that with pure motives and sincerity which are from God – not by human wisdom but by the grace of God – we conducted ourselves in the world, and all the more toward you.

We were encouraged not only by his arrival, but also by the encouragement you gave him, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your deep concern for me, so that I rejoiced more than ever.

In addition, this brother has also been chosen by the churches as our traveling companion as we administer this generous gift to the glory of the Lord himself and to show our readiness to help.

Now I, Paul, appeal to you personally by the meekness and gentleness of Christ (I who am meek when present among you, but am full of courage toward you when away!) –

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven.

For how were you treated worse than the other churches, except that I myself was not a burden to you? Forgive me this injustice!