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We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.
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Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
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He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,
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set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
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For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved?
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For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.
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But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.
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To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?
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Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?
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You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
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You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
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He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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The Greater Glory of the New Covenant
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was,
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Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
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For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
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We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
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persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
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We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
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For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
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So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
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because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.
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Awaiting the New Body
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
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Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
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in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;
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Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
