2 Corinthians1

Paul and Timothy greet the Corinthian church, emphasizing God as the source of all comfort in tribulation, enabling them to comfort others. Paul recounts a severe affliction in Asia, which taught him to trust in God alone for deliverance, and he defends his integrity and consistency regarding his travel plans. He explains his delayed visit was to spare them, affirming his role as a helper of their joy, not a dominator of their faith.

Salutation and Greeting

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Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, and Timotheus the brother, to the assembly of God that is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia:
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!

The God of All Comfort in Affliction

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Blessed is God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of the mercies, and God of all comfort,
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who is comforting us in all our tribulation, for our being able to comfort those in any tribulation through the comfort with which we are comforted ourselves by God;
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because, as the sufferings of the Christ do abound to us, so through the Christ doth abound also our comfort;
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and whether we be in tribulation, it is for your comfort and salvation, that is wrought in the enduring of the same sufferings that we also suffer; whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort and salvation;
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and our hope is stedfast for you, knowing that even as ye are partakers of the sufferings--so also of the comfort.
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For we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, of our tribulation that happened to us in Asia, that we were exceedingly burdened above our power, so that we despaired even of life;
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but we ourselves in ourselves the sentence of the death have had, that we may not be trusting on ourselves, but on God, who is raising the dead,
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who out of so great a death did deliver us, and doth deliver, in whom we have hoped that even yet He will deliver;
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ye working together also for us by your supplication, that the gift through many persons to us, through many may be thankfully acknowledged for us.

Paul Defends His Sincerity

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For our glorying is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we did conduct ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you;
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for no other things do we write to you, but what ye either do read or also acknowledge, and I hope that also unto the end ye shall acknowledge,
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according as also ye did acknowledge us in part, that your glory we are, even as also ye are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus;

Defense of the Changed Travel Plans

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and in this confidence I was purposing to come unto you before, that a second favour ye might have,
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and through you to pass to Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come unto you, and by you to be sent forward to Judea.
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This, therefore, counselling, did I then use the lightness; or the things that I counsel, according to the flesh do I counsel, that it may be with me Yes, yes, and No, no?
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and God is faithful, that our word unto you became not Yes and No,
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for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, among you through us having been preached--through me and Silvanus and Timotheus--did not become Yes and No, but in him it hath become Yes;
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for as many as are promises of God, in him are the Yes, and in him the Amen, for glory to God through us;
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and He who is confirming you with us into Christ, and did anoint us, is God,
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who also sealed us, and gave the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

The Pastoral Reason for Delay

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And I for a witness on God do call upon my soul, that sparing you, I came not yet to Corinth;
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not that we are lords over your faith, but we are workers together with your joy, for by the faith ye stand.
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