2 Corinthians 1

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, together with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

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

3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort,

4who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we can comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

5For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

6If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which works in you when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we also suffer.

7Our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in the sufferings, so also you share in the comfort.

8For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. We were so utterly weighed down, beyond our strength, that we despaired even of life.

9Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the sentence of death. This happened so that we would not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

10He rescued us from so deadly a peril, and he will rescue us. On him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again,

11as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many people may give thanks on our behalf for the gracious gift granted to us through the prayers of many.

12For this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with integrity and godly sincerity, not by worldly wisdom but by the grace of God.

13For we are not writing you anything other than what you read and understand, and I hope that you will understand fully,

14just as you have understood us in part, that we are your reason to boast, just as you also are ours on the day of our Lord Jesus.

15Because I was confident of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might receive a second benefit.

16I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia, and to be sent on my way by you to Judea.

17So when I wanted to do this, was I acting lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly way, so that with me it is “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

18But as surely as God is faithful, our word to you is not “Yes” and “No.”

19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you—I and Silvanus and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has been “Yes.”

20For all the promises of God, however many they are, find their “Yes” in him. That is why it is also through him that the “Amen” is spoken through us to the glory of God.

21Now it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us.

22He has also put his seal on us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.

23But I call on God as witness against my own soul that it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.

24Not that we rule over your faith; rather, we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm by faith.