menu_book Chapter 1

CHAPTER I. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Timothy, to the Church of God in Corinth, with all God's people throughout Greece. May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Heartfelt thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father who is

full of compassion and the God who gives all comfort. He comforts us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, by means of the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as we have more than our share of suffering for the Christ, so also through

the Christ we have more than our share of comfort. But if on the one hand we are enduring affliction, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if on the other hand we are receiving comfort, it is for your comfort which is produced within you through your patient fortitude under the same sufferings as those which we also are enduring.

And our hope for you is steadfast, for we know that as you are partners with us in the sufferings, so you are also partners in the comfort. For as for our troubles which came upon us in the province of Asia, we would have you know, brethren, that we were exceedingly weighed down and felt overwhelmed so that we renounced all hope even of life.

Nay, we had, as we still have, the sentence of death within our own selves, in order that our confidence may repose, not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead to life. He it is who rescued us from so imminent a death, and will do so again, and we have a firm hope in him that he will also rescue us in all the future, while you on your part lend us your aid in entreaty for us, so that from many lips thanksgivings may rise on our behalf

for the boon granted to us at the intercession of many. For the reason for our boasting is this, the testimony of our own conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, and in reliance not on worldly wisdom, but on the gracious help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and above all in our relations with you.

For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have written before, or from what indeed you already recognize as truth, and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end, just as some few of you have recognized us as your reason for boasting, even as you will be ours on the day of Jesus our Lord. It was because I entertained this confidence that I intended to visit you before going

elsewhere, so that you might receive a twofold proof of God's favor, and to pass by way of Corinth into Macedonia. Then my plan was to return from Macedonia to you, and be helped forward by you to Judea. Did I display any vacillation or caprice in this? Or the purposes which I form?

Do I form them on worldly principles? Now crying, yes, yes, and now, no, no? As certainly as God is faithful, our language to you is not now, yes, and now, no. For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, he who was proclaimed among you by us, that is by Silas, and Timothy, and myself, did not show himself a waverer between yes and no, but it was and

always is, yes, with him. For all the promises of God, whatever their number, have their confirmation in him, and for this reason through him also our Amen acknowledges their truth and promotes the glory of God through our faith. But he who is making us as well as you steadfast through union with the Anointed One, and has

anointed us, is God, and he has also set his seal upon us, and has put his spirit into our hearts as a pledge and foretaste of future blessing. But as for me, as my soul shall answer for it, I appeal to God as my witness that it was to spare you pain that I gave up my visit to Corinth. Not that we want to lord it over you in respect of your faith.

We do, however, desire to help your joy, for in the matter of your faith you are standing firm. Chapter 2 But so far as I am concerned, I have resolved not to have a painful visit the next time I come to see you. For if I of all men give you pain, who then is there to gladden my heart but the very

persons to whom I give pain? And I write this to you in order that when I come I may not receive pain from those who ought to give me joy, confident as I am as to all of you that my joy is the joy of you all. For with many tears I write to you, and in deep suffering and depression of spirit, not

in order to grieve you, but in the hope of showing you how brimful my heart is with love for you. Now if anyone has caused sorrow, it has been caused not so much to me as in some degree, for I have no wish to exaggerate, to all of you. In the case of such a person, the punishment which was inflicted by the majority of you

is enough. So that you may now take the opposite course and forgive him rather and comfort him, for fear he should perhaps be driven to despair by his excess of grief. I beg you therefore fully to reinstate him in your love. For in writing to you I have also this object in view, to discover by experience whether

you are prepared to be obedient in every respect. When you forgive a man an offence, I also forgive it. For in fact what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has always been for your sakes in the presence of Christ, for fear Satan should gain an advantage over us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

Now when I came into the Troad to spread there the good news about the Christ, even though in the Lord's providence a door stood open before me, yet, obtaining no relief for my spirit because I did not find our brother Titus, I bade them farewell and went on into Macedonia. But to God be the thanks who in Christ ever heads our triumphal procession, and by our hands waves in every place that sweet incense the knowledge of him.

For we are a fragrance of Christ grateful to God in those whom he is saving and in those who are perishing, to the last named and odor of death predictive of death, and to the other an odor of life predictive of life, and for such service as this who is competent. We are, for unlike most teachers we are not fraudulent hucksters of God's message, but with transparent motives as commissioned by God in God's presence and in communion with Christ.

So we speak. Chapter 3 Do you say that this is self-recommendation once more? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? Our letter of recommendation is yourselves, a letter written on our hearts and everywhere known and read. For all can see that you are a

letter of Christ entrusted to our care and written not with ink but with the Spirit of the ever-living God and not on tablets of stone but on human hearts as tablets. Such is the confidence which we have through Christ in the presence of God, not that of ourselves we are competent to decide anything by our own reasonings, but our competency comes from God. It is he also who has made us competent to serve him in connection with the new covenant which is not a written code but a spirit.

For the written code inflicts death, but the Spirit gives life. If, however, the service that proclaims death, its code being engraved in writing upon stones, came with glory so that the children of Israel could not look steadily on the face of Moses because of the brightness of his face, a vanishing brightness, will not the service of the Spirit be far more glorious? For if the service which pronounces doom had glory, far more glorious still is the service which tells of

righteousness. For, in fact, that which was once resplendent in glory has no glory at all in this respect, that it pales before the glory which surpasses it. For if that which was to be abolished came with glory, much more is that which is permanent arrayed in glory. Therefore, a rayed in glory. Therefore, cherishing a hope like this, we speak without reserve, and we do not imitate Moses, who used to throw a veil over his face to hide from the gaze of the

children of Israel the passing away of what was but transitory. Nay, their minds were made dull, for to this very day during the reading of the Book of the Ancient Covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because it is only in Christ that it is to be abolished. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their hearts. But whenever the heart of the nation shall have returned to the Lord, the veil will be withdrawn. Now by the Lord is meant the Spirit, and where the Spirit

of the Lord is, freedom is enjoyed. And all of us, with unveiled faces, reflecting like bright mirrors the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same likeness, from one degree of radiant holiness to another, even as derived from the Lord the Spirit. Chapter 4 Therefore, being engaged in this service, and being mindful of the mercy which has been shown us, we are not cowards. Nay, we have renounced the secrecy which marks a feeling of shame.

We practice no cunning tricks, nor do we adulterate God's message, but by a full, clear statement of the truth we strive to commend ourselves in the presence of God to every human conscience. If, however, the meaning of our Good News has been veiled, the veil has been on the hearts of those who are on the way to perdition, in whom the God of this present age has blinded their unbelieving minds so as to shut out the sunshine of the Good News of the glory of the

Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves, but we proclaim Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for the sake of Jesus. For God who said, Out of darkness let light shine, is he who has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory which is radiant on the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in a fragile vase of clay, in order that the surpassing greatness of the power may be seen to belong to

God and not to originate in us. We are hard-pressed, yet never in absolute distress, perplexed, yet never utterly baffled, pursued, yet never left unsucculured, struck to the ground, yet never slain. Always, wherever we go, carrying with us in our bodies the putting to death of Jesus, so that in our bodies it may also be clearly shown that Jesus lives. For we, alive though we are, are continually surrendering ourselves to death for the sake of

Jesus, so that in this mortal nature of ours it may also be clearly shown that Jesus lives. Thus we are constantly dying, while you are in full enjoyment of life. But possessing the same spirit of faith as he who wrote, I believed, and therefore I have spoken, we also believe, and therefore we speak. For we know that he who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise us also to be with Jesus, and will cause both us and you to stand in his own presence. For everything

is for your sakes, in order that grace, being more richly bestowed because of the thanksgivings of the increased number, may more and more promote the glory of God. Therefore we are not cowards. Nay, even though our outward man is wasting away, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day. For this our light and transitory burden of suffering is achieving for us a preponderating, yes, a vastly preponderating and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at things seen,

but things unseen. For things seen are temporary, but things unseen are eternal. Chapter 5. For we know that if this poor tent, our earthly house, is taken down, we have in heaven a building which God has provided, a house not built by human hands, but eternal. For in this one we sigh, because we long to put on over it our dwelling which comes from heaven, if indeed having really put on a robe, we shall

not be found to be unclothed. Yes, we who are in this tent certainly do sigh under our burdens, for we do not wish to lay aside that with which we are now clothed, but to put on more, so that our mortality may be absorbed in life. And he who formed us with this very end in view is God, who has given us his Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of that bliss. We have therefore a cheerful confidence. We know that while we are at home in the body,

we are banished from the Lord, for we are living a life of faith and not one of sight. So we have a cheerful confidence, and we anticipate with greater delight being banished from the body going home to the Lord. And for this reason also we make it our ambition, whether at home or in exile, to please him perfectly. For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgment seat in our true characters, in order that each may then receive an award for his actions in this life, in accordance

with what he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless. Therefore, because we realize how greatly the Lord is to be feared, we are endeavoring to win men over, and God recognizes what our motives are, and I hope that you in your hearts recognize them too. We are not again commending ourselves to your favor, but are furnishing you with a ground of boasting on our behalf, so that you may have a reply ready for those with whom superficial appearances are

everything and sincerity of heart counts for nothing. For if we have been beside ourselves, it has been for God's glory, or if we are now in our right senses, it is in order to be of service to you. For the love of Christ over masters us the conclusion at which we have arrived being this, that one having died for all, his death was their death, and that he died for all in order that the living may no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and rose again. Therefore,

for the future, we know no one simply as a man, even if we have known Christ as a man, yet now we do so no longer, so that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old state of things has passed away, a new state of things has come into existence, and all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has appointed us to serve in the ministry of reconciliation. We are to tell how God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not charging men's

transgressions to their account, and that he has entrusted to us the message of this reconciliation. On Christ's behalf, therefore, we come as ambassadors, God as it were making entreaty through our lips. We on Christ's behalf beseech men to be reconciled to God. He has made him who knew nothing of sin to be sin for us, in order that in him we may become the righteousness of God.