Common - II Corinthians - 1

1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are throughout Achaia:

1:2  grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort,

1:4  who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

1:5  For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

1:6  If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings that we suffer.

1:7  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.

1:8  For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.

1:9  Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

1:10  He delivered us from so deadly a peril, and he will deliver us; on him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

1:11  You also must help us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

1:12  For our boast is this: the testimony of our conscience, that with holiness and godly sincerity, not in worldly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and still more toward you.

1:13  For we write you nothing but what you can read and understand; and I hope you will understand fully,

1:14  as you have understood us in part, that you can be proud of us just as we can be of you, in the day of the Lord Jesus.

1:15  Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double benefit.

1:16  I planned 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.

1:17  When I was planning this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a fleshly manner so that in the same breath I say, "Yes, Yes" and "No, No"?

1:18  But as surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No.

1:19  For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not Yes and No, but in him it has always been Yes.

1:20  For as many as are the promises of God, in him they are Yes. And so through him we speak our Amen to the glory of God.

1:21  Now it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us;

1:22  he has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

1:23  But I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.

1:24  Not that we lord it over your faith; but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.