as you also join in helping us by prayer, so that many people may give thanks to God ¹  on our behalf for the gracious gift given to us through the help of many.

just as also you have partly understood us, that we are your source of pride just as you also are ours ¹  in the day of the Lord Jesus. ² 

Therefore, because we know the fear of the Lord, ¹  we try to persuade ²  people, ³  but we are well known ⁴  to God, and I hope we are well known to your consciences too.

I have great confidence in you; I take great pride ¹  on your behalf. I am filled with encouragement; ²  I am overflowing with joy in the midst of ³  all our suffering.

Therefore we have been encouraged. And in addition to our own encouragement, we rejoiced even more at the joy of Titus, because all of you have refreshed his spirit. ¹ 

And his affection for you is much greater ¹  when he remembers the obedience of you all, how you welcomed him with fear and trembling.

For I do not say this so there would be relief for others and suffering for you, but as a matter of equality.

But I am sending ¹  these brothers so that our boasting about you may not be empty in this case, so that you may be ready ²  just as I kept telling them.

For if I boast somewhat more about our authority that the Lord gave us ¹  for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of doing so. ² 

But we will not boast beyond certain limits, ¹  but will confine our boasting ²  according to the limits of the work to which God has appointed us, ³  that reaches even as far as you.

For we were not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach as far as you, because we were the first to reach as far as you with the gospel about Christ. ¹ 

I have become a fool. You yourselves forced me to do it, for I should have been commended by you. For I lack nothing in comparison ¹  to those “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.

Have you been thinking all this time ¹  that we have been defending ourselves to you? We are speaking in Christ before God, and everything we do, dear friends, is to build you up. ² 

Finally, brothers and sisters, ¹  rejoice, set things right, be encouraged, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.

[[EMPTY]] ¹ 

And I wrote this very thing to you, ¹  so that when I came ²  I would not have sadness from those who ought to make me rejoice, since I am confident in you all that my joy would be yours.

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 ¹  before God.

For if I have boasted to him about anything concerning you, I have not been embarrassed by you, ¹  but just as everything we said to you was true, ²  so our boasting to Titus about you ³  has proved true as well.

Therefore I thought it necessary to urge these brothers to go to you in advance and to arrange ahead of time the generous contribution ¹  you had promised, so this may be ready as a generous gift ²  and not as something you feel forced to do. ³ 

Through the evidence ¹  of this service ²  they will glorify God because of your obedience to your confession in the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your sharing ³  with them and with everyone.