first-fruits of Achaia, and that I salute you. Aquila and Pristhey have addicted themselves cilla salute you much in the to the service of the saints, 16 Lord; and the church also that that ye also submit yourselves assembleth in their house. 20 to such, and to every one who All the brethren salute you. Sahelpeth with me and laboureth. lute one another with a holy kiss. 17 I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus; for what remained to be done on your part, they have supplied; 18 for they have refreshed my spirit, and yours: acknowledge, therefore, such persons. 19 The churches of Asia THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE CHAP. I. 1 PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is in Corinth, and to all the saints who are in all Achaia: 2 favour be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 THE salutation by the hand of me Paul. 22 If any one love not the Lord [Jesus Christ], let him be separated from you. Our Lord cometh. 23 The favour of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 24 My love* be with you all in Christ Jesus. [Amen.] 3 BLESSED be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; 4 who com. forteth us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God: 5 for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ. 6 But whether we be afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or whether we be comforted, it is for your comfort, which worketh in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: 7 (and our hope concerning you is stedfast;) since we know, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so are ye also of the comfort. 8 For, brethren, we would not have you ignorant of our ten in mistake for You, (which is a contraction for "The Alex. MS. omits pov my, and Le Clerc thinks that μou my, may have been writou, of God, so that the true reading Compare 2 Cor. xiii. 14." See Im. by you on my way towards Judea. 17 When therefore I thus purposed, did I use any lightness? or the things which I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yes, yes, and no, no? † affliction which befel [us] in Asia; that we were exceedingly pressed above our strength, so that we despaired even of life: 9 but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead: 10 who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver us; in whom we hope that he will yet deliver us; 11 you likewise helping, together with others, by prayer for us; that, because of the benefit bestowed on us by means of many persons, thanks may be given for us by many. 12 FOR this is our boasting,* the testimony of our conscience; that, in simplicity and sincerity towards God, (not with carnal wisdom, but by the favour of God,) we have behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly towards you. 13 For we do not write different things to you, but only what ye read or even acknowledge, and I hope that ye will acknowledge [even] to the end: 14 as ye have acknowledged us also as to part of you; for we are your boasting, as ye also will be ours in the day of the Lord Jesus. * 18 But as God is faithful, our preaching to you was not yes and no. 19 For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was preached among you by us, (even by me, and Silvanus, and Timothy,) was not yes, and no, but in him was yes: 20 (for all the promises of God are, in him, the yes, and, in him, the amen,) to the glory of God through us. 21 But he who establisheth us, together with you, in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God: 22 who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the spirit in our hearts. 23 Moreover I call upon God as a witness against my soul, that to spare you, I came not as yet to Corinth: 24 (not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellowhelpers of your joy; for in faith ye stand.) CH. II. 1 But I determined this with myself, that I would not come to you again in grief. 2 For if I grieve you, who maketh me glad, but he who is 15 AND in this confidence, I was formerly desirous of com ceive a second benefit ;) 16 and to pass by you into Macedonia, and to return to you from Macedonia, and to be conducted ing to you, (that ye might re-grieved by me? 3 And I wrote this matter [to you], lest, when I came, I should have grief from those, on whose account I ought to rejoice; having con * See 1 Cor. xv. 31, and the note there. + Michaelis conjectures that the true reading is το ναι, ου, και το ου, ναι, that my yes should be no, and my no, yes. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 408. | fidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all. 4 For out of much affliction, and distress of heart, I wrote to you with many tears; not merely that ye might be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have most abundantly for you. 5 BUT if any one have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part; that I may not charge you all. 6 Sufficient to such an one is that rebuke, which was given by many: 7 so that, on the contrary, ye ought rather to forgive him, and to comfort him; lest such an one should be swallowed up by excessive grief. 8 Where-again to recommend ourselves? fore I beseech you to confirm or need we, as some, letters of your love towards him. 9 For recommendation to you, or letto this end also I wrote, that I ters [of recommendation] from might know the proof of you, you 2 Ye are our letter of whether ye be obedient in all recommendation, written in the things. 10 But to whom ye for- hearts of us all, known and give any thing, I forgive also: read by all men: 3 since ye are for what I have forgiven, if I manifestly declared to be the have forgiven any thing, for letter of Christ, ministered by your sakes I have done it, in the us; written not with ink, but person of Christ; 11 lest the by the spirit of the living God; adversary should gain advan- not on tables of stone, but on tage over us for we are not the fleshy tables of the heart. ignorant of his devices. umph* in Christ, and maketh manifest the odour of the knowledge of himself through us, in every place. 15 (For we are a sweet odourt of Christ unto God, among those who are saved, and among those who are lost: 16 to the one we are the odour of death unto death; and to the other, the odour of life unto life and who is sufficient for these things?) 17 For we are not as many, who corrupt‡ the word of God: but, as of sincerity, as of God, as in the presence of God, we speak concerning Christ. CH. III. 1 Must we begin 4 Now we have this kind of self-confidence through Christ towards God: 5 not because we are sufficient of ourselves to reason any thing as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God: 6 who hath even made us able ministers of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter 14 BUT thanks be to God, who always causeth us to tri-killeth, but the spirit giveth 12 NOW when I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened to me by the Lord, 13 I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but I bade them farewel, and went thence into Macedonia. * who leadeth us in triumph, Wakefield. † smell, Newcome. that adulterate, N. "an allusion to vintners, who adulterate pure wine with unwholesome mixtures." Im. Ver. note. life. 7 But if the ministry of death, engraven in letters [on] stones, was glorious, so that the sons of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses, in consequence of the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away; 8 how shall not the ministry of the spirit be rather glorious? is freedom.) 18 For we all, with unveiled face, reflecting as mirrors the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Lord of the spirit.* CH. IV. 1 WHEREFORE having this ministry, according as we have received mercy, we 9 For if the ministry of con- faint not; 2 but have commanddemnation was glorious, much ed away the hidden things of more doth the ministry of justi- shame, not walking in craftification abound in glory. 10 Forness, nor acting deceitfully even that which was glorified with the word of God; but, was not glorified in this re- by manifestation of the truth, spect, by reason of the excelling recommending ourselves to glory. 11 For if that which is every man's conscience, in the abolished, is abolished by glory, sight of God. 3 But if our gosmuch more that which remain-pel also be veiled, it is veileth, remaineth in glory. ed to those who are lost;† 4 to those unbelievers, whose minds the god of this age hath blinded; so that the lustre of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, doth not enlighten them. 5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and are ourselves your servants on account of Jesus. : 12 Having therefore such hope, we use much plainness of speech; 13 and not as Moses, who put a veil upon his face; that the sons of Israel might not steadfastly behold the end of that which is now abolished. 14 (Yet their minds are blinded for until this day the same veil remaineth, in the reading of the old covenant; it not being discovered that it is abolished in Christ; 15 but even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart: 16 nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil will be taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the spirit: and where the spirit of the Lord is, [there] 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shone in our hearts, to give the lustre of his glorious knowledge, in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 BUT we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God, and not of us. 8 We *So Macknight. "The meaning of this passage, stripped of the metaphor, is, We apostles, the ministers of the covenant of the Spirit, do not impart to the world a veiled or dark knowledge of that covenant, as Moses gave the Israelites an obscure knowledge of the covenant of the letter. But we all, having a complete knowledge of the covenant of the Spirit by inspiration from Christ, preach it every where in the plainest manner. So that in diffusing the knowledge of God and religion through the world, we are the images or representatives of Christ, by the power of an abiding inspiration from him who is the Lord, or author of the covenant of the Spirit." See Macknight in loco. "to them who destroy themselves." Ibid. are every way afflicted, but not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; 10 always bearing about in our body the death of Jesus; that the life, also, of Jesus, may be made manifest in our body. 11 For we, who are alive, are continually exposed to death for the sake of Jesus; that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh. 12 So that death worketh in us, but life in you. 13 Yet having the same spirit of faith, as it is written," I believed, and therefore I have spoken," we also believe, and therefore speak; 14 knowing, that he who raised up the Lord Jesus, will raise up us also by Jesus, and will present us together with you. 15 For all our sufferings are for your sakes; that the favour which hath abounded to many, may, through the thanksgiving of many, overflow to the glory of God. 16 For which cause, we faint not; but, even though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 17 For our present light affliction worketh for us an excessively exceeding aionian weight of glory;* 18 for we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are for a short time, but the things which are not seen are aionian. CH. V. 1 For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, aionian, in the heavens. 2 For we groan in this tabernacle, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: 3 since we shall indeed be found clothed upon, and not naked. 4 For we who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened; not that we wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon; that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now he who hath prepared us for this purpose, is God; who hath [also given us the earnest of the spirit. 6 Wherefore we are always of good courage, and know that, while we are present in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight :) 8 we are of good courage, I say, and desirous rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord: 9 wherefore we earn rnestly strive also, that, whether present or absent, we may be well-pleasing to him. 10 For we must all be made manifest before the judgmentseat of Christ; that every one may receive the things in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 11 KNOWING therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; and we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest in your * Gr. καθ' ὑπερβολην εις ὑπερβολην αιώνιον. Now if aionian be strictly infinite or endless, how can any thing exceed it, even by a rhetorical figure, so as to be hyperbole upon hyperbole above or |