Are they servants of Christ? (I am talking like I am out of my mind!) I am even more so: with much greater labors, with far more imprisonments, with more severe beatings, facing death many times.

Now I will most gladly spend and be spent for your lives! ¹  If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

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 our reason for confidence ¹  is this: the testimony of our conscience, that with pure motives ²  and sincerity which are from God ³  – not by human wisdom ⁴  but by the grace of God – we conducted ourselves in the world, and all the more ⁵  toward you.

For out of great distress and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not to make you sad, but to let you know the love that I have especially for you. ¹