Second Epistle to the Corinthians - The New Testament

¹ Since these promises have been made to us, my dear friends, we should wash ourselves clean of everything that pollutes either body or spirit, bringing our sanctification to completion in the fear of God.

² Keep a place for us in your hearts. We have not injured anyone, or ruined anyone, or taken advantage of anyone.

³ I am not saying this to condemn anybody; as I have already told you, you are in our hearts -- so that together we live and together we die.

⁴ I can speak with the greatest frankness to you; and I can speak with the greatest pride about you: in all our hardship, I am filled with encouragement and overflowing with joy.

⁵ Even after we had come to Macedonia, there was no rest for this body of ours. Far from it; we were beset by hardship on all sides, there were quarrels all around us and misgivings within us.

⁶ But God, who encourages all those who are distressed, encouraged us through the arrival of Titus;

⁷ and not simply by his arrival only, but also by means of the encouragement that you had given him, as he told us of your desire to see us, how sorry you were and how concerned for us; so that I was all the more joyful.

⁸ So now, though I did distress you with my letter, I do not regret it. Even if I did regret it -- and I realise that the letter distressed you, even though not for long-

⁹ I am glad now, not because you were made to feel distress, but because the distress that you were caused led to repentance; your distress was the kind that God approves and so you have come to no kind of harm through us.

¹⁰ For to be distressed in a way that God approves leads to repentance and then to salvation with no regrets; it is the world's kind of distress that ends in death.

¹¹ Just look at this present case: at what the result has been of your being made to feel distress in the way that God approves -- what concern, what defence, what indignation and what alarm; what yearning, and what enthusiasm, and what justice done. In every way you have cleared yourselves of blame in this matter.

¹² So although I wrote a letter to you, it was not for the sake of the offender, nor for the one offended, but only so that you yourselves should fully realise in the sight of God what concern you have for us.

¹³ That is what I have found encouraging. In addition to all this to encourage us, we were made all the more joyful by Titus' joy, now that his spirit has been refreshed by you all.

¹⁴ And if I boasted about you to him in any way, then I have not been made to look foolish; indeed, our boast to Titus has been proved to be as true as anything we said to you.

¹⁵ His personal affection for you is all the stronger when he remembers how obedient you have all been, and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling.

¹⁶ I am glad that I have every confidence in you.