2Corinthians:1

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* To the Church of God which is in Corinth , and to all the saints throughout Greece . from Paul , by Gods will an apostle of Christ , and from brother Timothy . * Grace to you and peace from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ . * Thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , the Father of tender mercies and the God of all comfort , * who ever comforts me in all my troubles , so that I may be continually able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which God is ever comforting me . * For just as I have more than my share in the sufferings of the Christ , so also through the Christ I have more than my share of comfort . * If I am afflicted , it is for your comfort and salvation ; and if I am receiving comfort , it is for your comfort - a comfort produced within you by your patient fortitude , under the same sufferings which I also am enduring . * My hope for you is firm ; for I know that as you are comrades in my sufferings , so also are you comrades in my comfort . * Now , brothers , I want you to know about the troubles which befell me in Asia ; how I was burdened altogether beyond my strength , so that I renounced all hope even of life itself . * Indeed , I had in myself , and still have , the sentence of death , in order that I might not rely on myself , but on God who raises the dead to life . * He delivered me from such a death , and will deliver me . On him I have set my hopes that he will continue to deliver me , * while all of you also are helping me by your prayers ; so that from many lips thanksgiving may rise on my behalf for the blessings vouchsafed to me through the intercessions of many . * For this is my proud boast , the testimony of my conscience , that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God , not in worldly wisdom , but in the grace of God , that I have conducted myself in the world , and above all in my relations with you . * For I am writing to you nothing different from what you read aloud and very well recognize , and I hope will continue to recognize to the very end , * as some indeed did recognize in part at last , that I am your cause of boasting , just as you will be mine on the Day of Jesus our Lord . * And in this confidence I intended to visit you , before going elsewhere , that you might have a pleasure twice over . * I intended to go by you into Macedonia , and to come again to you from Macedonia , and by you to be sent forward on my way to Judea . * In purposing this did I display "caprice "? Or what I purpose do I purpose in a worldly way ,so that it may mean either "Yes , yes ," or "No , no "? * As God is faithful , my message to you is not now "Yes ," now "No ." * For Jesus Christ , Son of God , who was proclaimed among you by us , that is , by Silvanus and Timothy and me , was not wavering between "Yes " and "No ," but in him is the everlasting "Yes ." * For however many are the promises of God , in him they are "Yes ." Therefore also through him let the Amen be said by our voices to the glory of God . * And he who has established me with you in the Anointed One , and has anointed me , is God . * He has also set his seal upon me , and given me the pledge of his Spirit in my heart . * But for my part I call God to witness , as my soul shall answer for it , that it was to spare you that I came not to Corinth * (not that I am attempting to lord it over your faith , but rather to work with you for your happiness ); for your faith is stedfast .

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