2 Corinthians

7 So, dear friends, having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, working out holiness in the fear of God.

2 Find room for us; we did not wrong anybody, wreck anybody, overreach anybody. 3* I am not saying it by way of condemnation; for I have said before that you are in our hearts to live and die with us. 4 I have great confidence in speaking to you, great boasts on your account; I am filled full of encouragement, I have superabundant gladness with all our distress— 5* for when we came to Macedonia our human nature had no relief; but in distress at every point—outwardly fights, inwardly fears— 6 but he who encourages those that are brought low, God, encouraged us with Titus’s arrival, 7 and not only his arrival but also the encouragement he had over you as he reported to us your longing, your lamenting, your jealousy for me, so that I had more of gladness; 8 because if I did grieve you in my letter, I do not regret it; if I did regret it (I see that that letter did, if only momentarily, grieve you) 9 I am glad now, not that you were grieved but that you were grieved into repentance. For you were grieved in God’s way, in order that you might not be in any respect the worse off by us; 10 for grief that is felt in God’s way causes repentance into salvation, which there is no regretting, but the world’s grief produces death. 11* For look what earnestness, nay, words of self-defense, nay, indignation, nay, fear, nay, longing, nay, jealousy, nay, castigation! every way you kept your skirts clean in the matter. 12 So then if I did write to you it was not on account of the one who did the wrong nor of the one who was wronged, but for the sake of having your earnestness on our behalf made apparent to yourselves before God. 13 For this reason we have felt encouraged; and along with our encouragement we were all the gladder at Titus’s gladness because his spirit has been set at rest by all of you, 14 because if I have made any boast to him about you I was not put to shame, but as we told you everything truthfully, so too our boasting before Titus proved true. 15 And his sympathies are most pronounced toward you as he remembers the obedience of all of you, how you received him with fear and trembling. 16* I am glad to say that on every score I am in good spirits as regards you.