2 Corinthians 7:3–4

¹¹O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.

¹²Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.

⁸For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

⁹And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;

⁸So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.

¹⁵And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.

¹⁶And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

¹⁷Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

¹⁴I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.

¹⁵For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.

¹¹Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth.

¹⁰Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.

⁴For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.

⁵But if any have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part: that I may not overcharge you all.

²Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:

¹²Wherefore, though I wrote unto you, I did it not for his cause that had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto you.

⁴Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

¹²Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:

²My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

⁴I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;

²⁴Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

¹⁷Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.

³And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

¹⁹For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?

²But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention.

⁷Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith:

⁸For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.

⁹For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God;

¹⁴As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.

²¹I speak as concerning reproach, as though we had been weak. Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.

¹⁴Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

¹⁰As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

¹¹O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.

⁶Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus;

⁷And not by his coming only, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you, when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me; so that I rejoiced the more.

²⁴Wherefore shew ye to them, and before the churches, the proof of your love, and of our boasting on your behalf.

²For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many.

³Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready:

⁴Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.

⁴¹¶ And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

¹⁹And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,

²⁰For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

²⁰According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.

¹NOW I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:

²But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.