2 Corinthians 1–2 | Day 26

2 Corinthians 1 (NIV 1984)

¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
² To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia:
³ Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
⁴ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
⁵ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
⁶ When we are troubled, it is for your comfort and salvation; when we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
⁸ We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, 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.
⁹ 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.
¹⁰ 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,
¹¹ as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
¹² Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.
¹³ We are not writing you anything you cannot read or understand. I hope you will understand until the end.
¹⁴ As surely as you have our help in whatever way we can provide it, we have great confidence in you.
¹⁵ I was sure of this when I decided to come to you again.
¹⁶ I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea.
¹⁷ Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say “Yes, yes” one moment, and “No, no” the next?
¹⁸ As surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”
¹⁹ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me, Silas and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.”
²⁰ For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
²¹ Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us,
²² set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
²³ I call God as my witness—and I stake my life on it—that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.
²⁴ Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.

2 Corinthians 2 (NIV 1984)

¹ But I decided this with all the others who travel with me, to spare you this pain.
² If I had caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—
³ yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us.
⁴ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
⁵ See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.
⁶ The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient.
⁷ Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
⁸ I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.
⁹ Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.
¹⁰ Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if I have forgiven anything—was for your sake in the presence of Christ,
¹¹ so that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.
¹² Now when I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, and when a door was opened for me in the Lord,
¹³ I had no peace of mind because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to the people and went on to Macedonia.
¹⁴ 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.
¹⁵ For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
¹⁶ 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?
¹⁷ Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.