Living_Oracles(i)
1 Besides, I determined this with myself, not to come again to you with sorrow.
2 For if I should make you sorry, who then is he that could make me glad, unless the same who is made sorry by me?
3 Wherefore, I wrote to you this very thing, that, coming, I might not have sorrow from them in whom I ought to rejoice; being firmly persuaded concerning you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
4 For out of much affliction and distress of heart, I wrote to you with many tears; not that you might be made sorry, but that you might know the love which I have most abundantly toward you.
5 Now, if a certain person has grieved me, he has not grieved me except by a part of you, that I may not lay a load on you all.
6 Sufficient for such a one is the punishment, which was inflicted by the majority.
7 So that, on the other hand, you ought more willingly to forgive and comfort him, lest such a one should be swallowed up by excessive grief.
8 Wherefore, I beseech you to confirm your love to him.
9 For to this end, also, I wrote, that I might know the proof of you, whether you be obedient in all things.
10 Now, to whom you forgive anything, I also forgive: and even I, if I have now forgiven anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes I forgave it, in the person of Christ:
11 that we may not be overreached by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his devices.
12 Moreover, when I came to Troas, in order to declare the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened to me by the Lord;
13 I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus, my brother: therefore, bidding them farewell, I went away into Macedonia.
14 Now, thanks be to God, who at all times causes us to triumph in Christ; and who, by us, diffuses the odor of the knowledge of him in every place:
15 for we are, through God, a fragrant odor of Christ, among the saved and among the destroyed.
16 To these, indeed, we are the odor of death, ending in death; but to the others, the odor of life, ending in life: and who is competent to these things?
17 However, we are not like many who adulterate the word of God: but really from sincerity, yes, really from God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.