1But I have judged this with myself, not to come back to you in grief.

2For if I grieve you, who also [is] it that gladdens me, if not he that is grieved through me?

3And I have written this very [letter] [to you], that coming I may not have grief from those from whom I ought to have joy; trusting in you all that my joy is [that] of you all.

4For out of much tribulation and distress of heart I wrote to you, with many tears; not that ye may be grieved, but that ye may know the love which I have very abundantly towards you.

5But if any one has grieved, he has grieved, not me, but in part (that I may not overcharge [you]) all of you.

6Sufficient to such a one [is] this rebuke which [has been inflicted] by the many;

7so that on the contrary ye should rather shew grace and encourage, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with excessive grief.

8Wherefore I exhort you to assure him of [your] love.

9For to this end also I have written, that I might know, by putting you to the test, if as to everything ye are obedient.

10But to whom ye forgive anything, I also; for I also, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, [it is] for your sakes in [the] person of Christ;

11that we might not have Satan get an advantage against us, for we are not ignorant of his thoughts.

12Now when I came to Troas for the [publication of the] glad tidings of the Christ, a door also being opened to me in [the] Lord,

13I had no rest in my spirit at not finding Titus my brother; but bidding them adieu, I came away to Macedonia.

14But thanks [be] to ¹⁵God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ, and makes manifest the odour of his knowledge through us in every place.

15For we are a sweet odour of Christ to ¹⁶God, in the saved and in those that perish:

16to the one an odour from death unto death, but to the others an odour from life unto life; and who [is] sufficient for these things?

17For we do not, as the many, make a trade of the word of ¹⁷God; but as of sincerity, but as of ¹⁸God, before ¹⁹God, we speak in Christ.