2 Corinthians 1-4

Darby Translation

1 Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ by God's will, and the brother Timotheus, to the assembly of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia.

² Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and [the] Lord Jesus Christ.

³ Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions, and God of all encouragement;

⁴ who encourages us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to encourage those who are in any tribulation whatever, through the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged of God.

⁵ Because, even as the sufferings of the Christ abound towards us, so through the Christ does our encouragement also abound.

⁶ But whether we are in tribulation, [it is] for your encouragement and salvation, wrought in the endurance of the same sufferings which *we* also suffer,

⁷ (and our hope for you [is] sure;) or whether we are encouraged, [it is] for your encouragement and salvation: knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so also of the encouragement.

⁸ For we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, as to our tribulation which happened [to us] in Asia, that we were excessively pressed beyond [our] power, so as to despair even of living.

⁹ But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead;

¹⁰ who has delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver; in whom we confide that he will also yet deliver;

¹¹ ye also labouring together by supplication for us that the gift towards us, through means of many persons, may be the subject of the thanksgiving of many for us.

¹² For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity before God, (not in fleshly wisdom but in God's grace,) we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly towards you.

¹³ For we do not write other things to you but what ye well know and recognise; and I hope that ye will recognise to the end,

¹⁴ even as also ye have recognised us in part, that we are your boast, even as *ye* [are] ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁵ And with this confidence I purposed to come to you previously, that ye might have a second favour;

¹⁶ and to pass through to Macedonia by you, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be set forward by you to Judaea.

¹⁷ Having therefore this purpose, did I then use lightness? Or what I purpose, do I purpose according to flesh, that there should be with me yea yea, and nay nay?

¹⁸ Now God [is] faithful, that our word to you is not yea and nay.

¹⁹ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, he who has been preached by us among you (by me and Silvanus and Timotheus), did not become yea and nay, but yea *is* in him.

²⁰ For whatever promises of God [there are], in him is the yea, and in him the amen, for glory to God by us.

²¹ Now he that establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, [is] God,

²² who also has sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

²³ But I call God to witness upon my soul that to spare you I have not yet come to Corinth.

²⁴ Not that we rule over your faith, but are fellow-workmen of your joy: for by faith ye stand.

2 But I have judged this with myself, not to come back to you in grief.

² For if *I* grieve you, who also [is] it that gladdens me, if not he that is grieved through me?

³ And I have written this very [letter] [to you], that coming I may not have grief from those from whom I ought to have joy; trusting in you all that my joy is [that] of you all.

⁴ For out of much tribulation and distress of heart I wrote to you, with many tears; not that ye may be grieved, but that ye may know the love which I have very abundantly towards you.

⁵ But if any one has grieved, he has grieved, not me, but in part (that I may not overcharge [you]) all of you.

⁶ Sufficient to such a one [is] this rebuke which [has been inflicted] by the many;

⁷ so that on the contrary ye should rather shew grace and encourage, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with excessive grief.

⁸ Wherefore I exhort you to assure him of [your] love.

⁹ For to this end also I have written, that I might know, by putting you to the test, if as to everything ye are obedient.

¹⁰ But to whom ye forgive anything, *I* also; for I also, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, [it is] for your sakes in [the] person of Christ;

¹¹ that we might not have Satan get an advantage against us, for we are not ignorant of *his* thoughts.

¹² Now when I came to Troas for the [publication of the] glad tidings of the Christ, a door also being opened to me in [the] Lord,

¹³ I had no rest in my spirit at not finding Titus my brother; but bidding them adieu, I came away to Macedonia.

¹⁴ But thanks [be] to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ, and makes manifest the odour of his knowledge through us in every place.

¹⁵ For we are a sweet odour of Christ to God, in the saved and in those that perish:

¹⁶ to the one an odour from death unto death, but to the others an odour from life unto life; and who [is] sufficient for these things?

¹⁷ For we do not, as the many, make a trade of the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, before God, we speak in Christ.

3 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or do we need, as some, commendatory letters to you, or [commendatory] from you?

² *Ye* are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read of all men,

³ being manifested to be Christ's epistle ministered by us, written, not with ink, but [the] Spirit of [the] living God; not on stone tables, but on fleshy tables of [the] heart.

⁴ And such confidence have we through the Christ towards God:

⁵ not that we are competent of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our competency [is] of God;

⁶ who has also made us competent, [as] ministers of [the] new covenant; not of letter, but of spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens.

⁷ (But if the ministry of death, in letters, graven in stones, began with glory, so that the children of Israel could not fix their eyes on the face of Moses, on account of the glory of his face, [a glory] which is annulled;

⁸ how shall not rather the ministry of the Spirit subsist in glory?

⁹ For if the ministry of condemnation [be] glory, much rather the ministry of righteousness abounds in glory.

¹⁰ For also that [which was] glorified is not glorified in this respect, on account of the surpassing glory.

¹¹ For if that annulled [was introduced] with glory, much rather that which abides [subsists] in glory.

¹² Having therefore such hope, we use much boldness:

¹³ and not according as Moses put a veil on his own face, so that the children of Israel should not fix their eyes on the end of that annulled.

¹⁴ But their thoughts have been darkened, for unto this day the same veil remains in reading the old covenant, unremoved, which in Christ is annulled.

¹⁵ But unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil lies upon their heart.

¹⁶ But when it shall turn to [the] Lord, the veil is taken away.)

¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, but where the Spirit of [the] Lord [is, there is] liberty.

¹⁸ But *we* all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by [the] Lord [the] Spirit.

4 Therefore, having this ministry, as we have had mercy shewn us, we faint not.

² But we have rejected the hidden things of shame, not walking in deceit, nor falsifying the word of God, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God.

³ But if also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost;

⁴ in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is [the] image of God, should not shine forth [for them].

⁵ For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus Lord, and ourselves your bondmen for Jesus' sake.

⁶ Because [it is] the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in [the] face of [Jesus] Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us:

⁸ every way afflicted, but not straitened; seeing no apparent issue, but our way not entirely shut up;

⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed;

¹⁰ always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body;

¹¹ for we who live are always delivered unto death on account of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh;

¹² so that death works in us, but life in you.

¹³ And having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I have believed, therefore have I spoken; *we* also believe, therefore also we speak;

¹⁴ knowing that he who has raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus, and shall present [us] with you.

¹⁵ For all things [are] for your sakes, that the grace abounding through the many may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

¹⁶ Wherefore we faint not; but if indeed our outward man is consumed, yet the inward is renewed day by day.

¹⁷ For our momentary [and] light affliction works for us in surpassing measure an eternal weight of glory;

¹⁸ while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen [are] for a time, but those that are not seen eternal.