Chapter 2

¹For I made up my mind not to make you another painful visit. ²For if I hurt your feelings, who is there to cheer me up but the man whose feelings I hurt? ³This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy. ⁴For I was in great trouble and distress of mind when I wrote you, and I shed many tears as I did it, yet it was not to hurt your feelings, but to make you realize the extraordinary affection I have for you.

⁵But if anyone has hurt anybody’s feelings, it is not so much mine, as yours, or at least those of some of you, not to be too hard upon you all. ⁶For that individual, this censure by the majority of you is punishment enough, ⁷and so you must now turn around and forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by his remorse. ⁸So I beg you to restore him to his place in your affections. ⁹For that is why I wrote you—to find out how you would stand the test, and see if you would obey me absolutely. ¹⁰When you forgive a man, I forgive him too. For anything I had to forgive has been forgiven on your account, and as in the very presence of Christ, ¹¹to keep Satan from getting the better of us. For we know what he is after.

¹²When I went to Troas to preach the good news of the Christ there, I found a good opening for the Lord’s work, ¹³but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia. ¹⁴But thank God! he always leads me in his triumphal train, through Christ, and spreads the perfume of knowledge of him everywhere through me as his censer-bearer. ¹⁵Yes, I am the fragrance of Christ to God, diffused among those who are being saved, and those who are perishing alike; ¹⁶to the one, a deathly, deadly odor, to the other a vital, life-giving one. Who is qualified for this task? I am! ¹⁷For I am no peddler of God’s message, like most men, but like a man of sincerity, commissioned by God and in his presence, in union with Christ I utter his message.