1
Therefore, having these promises, most beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God.
2
Consider us. We have injured no one; we have corrupted no one; we have defrauded no one.(a)
3
I am not saying this to your condemnation. For we have told you before that you are in our hearts: to die together and to live together.
4
Great is my confidence in you. Great is my glorying over you. I have been filled with consolation. I have a superabundant joy throughout all our tribulation.
5
Then, too, when we had arrived in Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. Instead, we suffered every tribulation: exterior conflicts, interior fears.
6
But God, who consoles the humble, consoled us by the arrival of Titus,
7
and not only by his arrival, but also by the consolation with which he was consoled among you. For he brought to us your desire, your weeping, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced all the more.
8
For though I made you sorrowful by my epistle, I do not repent. And if I did repent, but only for a time, having realized that the same epistle made you sorrowful,
9
now I am glad: not because you were sorrowful, but because you were sorrowful unto repentance. For you became sorrowful for God, so that you might not suffer any harm from us.
10
For the sorrow that is according to God accomplishes a repentance which is steadfast unto salvation. But the sorrow that is of the world accomplishes death.
11
So consider this same idea, being sorrowful according to God, and what great solicitude it accomplishes in you: including protection, and indignation, and fear, and desire, and zeal, and vindication. In all things, you have shown yourselves to be uncorrupted by this sorrow.
12
And so, though I wrote to you, it was not because of him who caused the injury, nor because of him who suffered from it, but so as to manifest our solicitude, which we have for you before God.
13
Therefore, we have been consoled. But in our consolation, we have rejoiced even more abundantly over the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by all of you.
14
And if I have gloried in anything to him about you, I have not been put to shame. But, just as we have spoken all things to you in truth, so also our glorying before Titus has been the truth.
15
And his feelings are now more abundant toward you, since he remembers the obedience of you all, and how you received him with fear and trembling.
16
I rejoice that in all things I have confidence in you.
Footnotes