1 Greetings from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am an apostle because that is what God wanted. Greetings also from Timothy our brother in Christ.

To God’s church in Corinth and to all of God’s holy people throughout Achaia.

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

Paul Gives Thanks to God

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Father who is full of mercy, the God of all comfort. ⁴ He comforts us every time we have trouble so that when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us. ⁵ We share in the many sufferings of Christ. In the same way, much comfort comes to us through Christ. ⁶ If we have troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is so that we can comfort you. And this helps you patiently accept the same sufferings we have. ⁷ Our hope for you is strong. We know that you share in our sufferings. So we know that you also share in our comfort.

⁸ Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the trouble we suffered in Asia. We had great burdens there, which were greater than our own strength. We even gave up hope for life. ⁹ In fact, it seems like God has been telling us we are going to die. But this is so that we will not trust in ourselves but in God, who raises people from death. ¹⁰ He saved us from these great dangers of death, and he will continue to save us. We feel sure he will always save us. ¹¹ And you can help us with your prayers. Then many people will give thanks for us—that God blessed us because of their many prayers.

The Change in Paul’s Plans

¹² This is what we are proud of, and I can say with a clear conscience that it is true: In everything we have done in the world, we have done it with an honest and pure heart from God. And this is even truer in what we have done with you. We did this by God’s grace, not by the kind of wisdom the world has. ¹³ We write to you only what you can read and understand. And I hope you will fully understand, ¹⁴ just as you already understand many things about us. I hope you will understand that you can be proud of us, just as we will be proud of you on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

¹⁵ I was very sure of all this. That is why I made plans to visit you first. Then you could be blessed twice. ¹⁶ I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and again on my way back. I wanted to get help from you for my trip to Judea. ¹⁷ Do you think that I made these plans without really thinking? Or maybe you think I make plans as the world does, saying yes and no at the same time.

¹⁸ But if you can believe God, then you can believe that what we tell you is never both yes and no. ¹⁹ The Son of God, Jesus Christ, the one that Silas, Timothy, and I told you about was not yes and no. In Christ it has always been yes. ²⁰ The yes to all of God’s promises is in Christ. And that is why we say “Amen” through Christ to the glory of God. ²¹ And God is the one who makes you and us strong in Christ. God is also the one who chose us for his work.^{[a] 22} He put his mark on us to show that we are his. Yes, he put his Spirit in our hearts as the first payment that guarantees all that he will give us.

²³ I tell you this, and I ask God to be my witness that this is true: The reason I did not come back to Corinth was that I did not want to punish or hurt you. ²⁴ I don’t mean that we are trying to control your faith. You are strong in faith. But we are workers with you for your own happiness.

2 So I decided that my next visit to you would not be another visit to make you sad. ² If I make you sad, then who will make me happy? Only you can make me happy—you, the ones I made sad. ³ I wrote you a letter so that when I came to you I would not be made sad by those who should make me happy. I felt sure that all of you would share my joy. ⁴ When I wrote to you before, I was very troubled and my heart was full of sadness. I wrote with many tears. I did not write to make you sad, but to let you know how much I love you.

Forgive the Person Who Did Wrong

⁵ Someone in your group has caused sadness—not to me, but to all of you. I mean he has caused sadness to all in some way. (I don’t want to make it sound worse than it really is.) ⁶ The punishment that most of your group gave him is enough for him. ⁷ But now you should forgive him and encourage him. This will keep him from having too much sadness and giving up completely. ⁸ So I beg you to show him that you love him. ⁹ This is why I wrote to you. I wanted to test you and see if you obey in everything. ¹⁰ If you forgive someone, then I also forgive them. And what I have forgiven—if I had anything to forgive—I forgave it for you, and Christ was with me. ¹¹ I did this so that Satan would not win anything from us. We know very well what his plans are.

God Gives Us Victory Over Troubles

¹² I went to Troas to tell people the Good News of Christ. The Lord gave me a good opportunity there. ¹³ But I had no peace because I did not find my brother Titus. So I said goodbye and went to Macedonia.

¹⁴ But thanks be to God, who always leads us in victory through Christ. God uses us to spread his knowledge everywhere like a sweet-smelling perfume. ¹⁵ Our offering to God is to be the perfume of Christ that goes out to those who are being saved and to those who are being lost. ¹⁶ To those who are being lost, this perfume smells like death, and it brings them death. But to those who are being saved, it has the sweet smell of life, and it brings them life. So who is good enough to do this work? ¹⁷ Certainly not those who are out there selling God’s message for a profit! But we don’t do that. With Christ’s help we speak God’s truth honestly, knowing that we must answer to him.

Servants of God’s New Agreement

3 Why are we beginning again to tell you all these good things about ourselves? Do we need letters of introduction to you or from you, like some other people? ² No, you yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts. It is known and read by all people. ³ You show that you are a letter from Christ that he sent through us. This letter is not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. It is not written on stone^[b] tablets but on human hearts.

⁴ We can say this, because through Christ we feel sure before God. ⁵ I don’t mean that we are able to do anything good ourselves. It is God who makes us able to do all that we do. ⁶ He made us able to be servants of a new agreement from himself to his people. It is not an agreement of written laws, but it is of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.

An Agreement With Greater Glory

⁷ The old agreement^[c] that brought death, written with words on stone, came with God’s glory. In fact, the face of Moses was so bright with glory (a glory that was ending) that the people of Israel could not continue looking at his face. ⁸ So surely the new agreement that comes from the life-giving Spirit has even more glory. ⁹ This is what I mean: That old agreement judged people guilty of sin, but it had glory. So surely the new agreement that makes people right with God has much greater glory. ¹⁰ That old agreement had glory. But it really loses its glory when it is compared to the much greater glory of the new agreement. ¹¹ If the agreement that was brought to an end came with glory, then the agreement that never ends has much greater glory.

¹² We are so sure of this hope that we can speak very openly. ¹³ We are not like Moses, who put a covering over his face. He covered his face so that the people of Israel would not see it. The glory was disappearing, and Moses did not want them to see it end. ¹⁴ But their minds were closed. And even today, when those people read the writings of the old agreement,^[d] that same covering hides the meaning. That covering has not been removed for them. It is taken away only through Christ. ¹⁵ Yes, even today, when they read the Law of Moses, there is a covering over their minds. ¹⁶ But when someone changes and follows the Lord, that covering is taken away. ¹⁷ The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And our faces are not covered. We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like him. This change in us brings more and more glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Spiritual Treasure in Clay Jars

4 God, with his mercy, gave us this work to do, so we don’t give up. ² But we have turned away from secret and shameful ways. We don’t use trickery, and we don’t change the teaching of God. We teach the truth plainly. This is how we show people who we are. And this is how they can know in their hearts what kind of people we are before God. ³ The Good News that we tell people may be hidden, but it is hidden only to those who are lost. ⁴ The ruler^[e] of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They cannot see the light of the Good News—the message about the divine greatness of Christ. Christ is the one who is exactly like God. ⁵ We don’t tell people about ourselves. But we tell people that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we tell them that we are your servants for Jesus. ⁶ God once said, “Let light shine out of the darkness!”^[f] And this is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts to let us know that his own divine greatness is seen in the face of Christ.

⁷ We have this treasure from God, but we are only like clay jars that hold the treasure. This is to show that the amazing power we have is from God, not from us. ⁸ We have troubles all around us, but we are not defeated. We often don’t know what to do, but we don’t give up. ⁹ We are persecuted, but God does not leave us. We are hurt sometimes, but we are not destroyed. ¹⁰ So we constantly experience the death of Jesus in our own bodies, but this is so that the life of Jesus can also be seen in our bodies. ¹¹ We are alive, but for Jesus we are always in danger of death, so that the life of Jesus can be seen in our bodies that die. ¹² So death is working in us, but the result is that life is working in you.

¹³ The Scriptures say, “I believed, so I spoke.”^[g] Our faith is like that too. We believe, and so we speak. ¹⁴ God raised the Lord Jesus from death, and we know that he will also raise us with Jesus. God will bring us together with you, and we will stand before him. ¹⁵ All these things are for you. And so the grace of God is being given to more and more people. This will bring more and more thanks to God for his glory.

Living by Faith

¹⁶ That is why we never give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day. ¹⁷ We have small troubles for a while now, but these troubles are helping us gain an eternal glory. That eternal glory is much greater than our troubles. ¹⁸ So we think about what we cannot see, not what we see. What we see lasts only a short time, and what we cannot see will last forever.