1 I, Paul, am writing this letter. I am an apostle of Christ Jesus just as God planned. Timothy our brother joins me in writing.

We are sending this letter to you, the members of God’s church in Corinth. It is also for all God’s holy people everywhere in Achaia.

² May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Praise to the God Who Gives Comfort

³ Give praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He is the Father who gives tender love. All comfort comes from him. ⁴ He comforts us in all our troubles. Now we can comfort others when they are in trouble. We ourselves receive comfort from God. ⁵ We share very much in the sufferings of Christ. So we also share very much in his comfort. ⁶ If we are having trouble, it is so that you will be comforted and renewed. If we are comforted, it is so that you will be comforted. Then you will be able to put up with the same suffering we have gone through. ⁷ Our hope for you remains firm. We know that you suffer just as we do. In the same way, God comforts you just as he comforts us.

⁸ Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the hard times we had in Asia Minor. We were having a lot of trouble. It was far more than we could stand. We even thought we were going to die. ⁹ In fact, we felt as if we were under the sentence of death. But that happened so that we would not depend on ourselves but on God. He raises the dead to life. ¹⁰ God has saved us from deadly dangers. And he will continue to do it. We have put our hope in him. He will continue to save us. ¹¹ You must help us by praying for us. Then many people will give thanks because of what will happen to us. They will thank God for his kindness to us in answer to the prayers of many.

Paul Changes His Plans

¹² Here is what we take pride in. Our sense of what is right and wrong tells us how we have acted. We have lived with honor and godly honesty. We have depended on God’s grace and not on the world’s wisdom. We lived that way most of all when we were dealing with you. ¹³ We are writing only what you can read and understand. And here is what I hope. ¹⁴ Up to this point you have understood some of the things we have said. But now here is what I hope for when the Lord Jesus returns. I hope that your pride in us will be the same as our pride in you. When this happens, you will understand us completely.

¹⁵ Because I was sure of this, I wanted to visit you first. Here is how I thought you would be helped twice. ¹⁶ I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia. I would have come back to you from there. Then you would have sent me on my way to Judea. ¹⁷ When I planned all this, was I ready to change my mind for no good reason? No. I don’t make my plans the way the world makes theirs. In the same breath the world says both, “Yes! Yes!” and “No! No!”

¹⁸ But just as sure as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” ¹⁹ Silas, Timothy and I preached to you about the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Our message did not say “Yes” and “No” at the same time. The message of Christ has always been “Yes.” ²⁰ God has made a great many promises. They are all “Yes” because of what Christ has done. So through Christ we say “Amen.” We want God to receive glory. ²¹ He makes both us and you remain strong in the faith because we belong to Christ. He anointed us. ²² He put his Spirit in our hearts and marked us as his own. We can now be sure that he will give us everything he promised us.

²³ I call God to be my witness. May he take my life if I’m lying. I wanted to spare you, so I didn’t return to Corinth. ²⁴ Your faith is not under our control. You remain strong in your own faith. But we work together with you for your joy. 2 ¹ So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. ² If I make you sad, who is going to make me glad? Only you, the people I made sad. ³ What I wrote to you I wrote for a special reason. When I came, I didn’t want to be troubled by those who should make me glad. I was sure that all of you would share my joy. ⁴ I was very troubled when I wrote to you. My heart was sad. My eyes were full of tears. I didn’t want to make you sad. I wanted to let you know that I love you very deeply.

Forgive Those Who Make You Sad

⁵ Suppose someone has made us sad. In some ways, he hasn’t made me sad so much as he has made all of you sad. But I don’t want to put this too strongly. ⁶ He has been punished because most of you decided he should be. This punishment is enough. ⁷ Now you should forgive him and comfort him. Then he won’t be sad more than he can stand. ⁸ So I’m asking you to tell him again that you still love him. ⁹ I wrote to you for another special reason. I wanted to see if you could stand the test. I wanted to see if you could obey everything asked of you. ¹⁰ Anyone you forgive I also forgive. Was there anything to forgive? If so, I have forgiven it for your benefit, knowing that Christ is watching. ¹¹ We don’t want Satan to outsmart us. We know how he does his evil work.

Serving Under the New Covenant

¹² I went to Troas to preach the good news about Christ. There I found that the Lord had opened a door of opportunity for me. ¹³ But I still had no peace of mind. I couldn’t find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to the believers at Troas and went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴ Give thanks to God! He always leads us as if we were prisoners in Christ’s victory parade. Through us, God spreads the knowledge of Christ everywhere like perfume. ¹⁵ God considers us to be the pleasing smell that Christ is spreading. He is spreading it among people who are being saved and people who are dying. ¹⁶ To those who are dying, we are the smell of death. To those who are being saved, we are the perfume of life. Who is able to do this work? ¹⁷ Unlike many people, we aren’t selling God’s word to make money. In fact, it is just the opposite. Because of Christ we speak honestly before God. We speak like people God has sent.

3 Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Some people need letters that speak well of them. Do we need those kinds of letters, either to you or from you? ² You yourselves are our letter. You are written on our hearts. Everyone knows you and reads you. ³ You make it clear that you are a letter from Christ. You are the result of our work for God. You are a letter written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. You are a letter written not on tablets made out of stone but on human hearts.

⁴ Through Christ, we can be sure of this before God. ⁵ In ourselves we are not able to claim anything for ourselves. The power to do what we do comes from God. ⁶ He has given us the power to serve under a new covenant. The covenant is not based on the written Law of Moses. It comes from the Holy Spirit. The written Law kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The Greater Glory of the New Covenant

⁷ The Law was written in letters on stone. Even though it was a way of serving God, it led to death. But even that way of serving God came with glory. The glory lasted for only a short time. Even so, the people of Israel couldn’t look at Moses’ face very long. ⁸ Since all this is true, won’t the work of the Holy Spirit be even more glorious? ⁹ The law that condemns people to death had glory. How much more glory does the work of the Spirit have! His work makes people right with God. ¹⁰ The glory of the old covenant is nothing compared with the far greater glory of the new. ¹¹ The glory of the old lasts for only a short time. How much greater is the glory of the new! It will last forever.

¹² Since we have that kind of hope, we are very bold. ¹³ We are not like Moses. He used to cover his face with a veil. That was to keep the people of Israel from seeing the end of what was passing away. ¹⁴ But their minds were made stubborn. To this day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. The veil has not been removed. Only faith in Christ can take it away. ¹⁵ To this day, when the Law of Moses is read, a veil covers the minds of those who hear it. ¹⁶ But when anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Holy Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, freedom is also there. ¹⁸ None of our faces are covered with a veil. All of us can see the Lord’s glory and think deeply about it. So we are being changed to become more like him so that we have more and more glory. And this glory comes from the Lord, who is the Holy Spirit.