Reaffirm Your Love

1For I decided this within myself, not to come to you⁺ again in grief. 2For if I grieve you⁺, then who is gladdening me except the one being grieved by me? 3And I wrote† this same thing so that, having come, I might not have grief from those for whom it was necessary for me to rejoice, having been confident in you⁺ all, that my joy is of all of you⁺. 4For out of much tribulation and anguish of heart, I wrote to you⁺ through many tears, not that you⁺ might be grieved, but that you⁺ might know the love that I have more abundantly toward you⁺.

5But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but in part (so that I might not be severe) all of you⁺. 6Sufficient to such a one is the punishment that is by the majority, 7so that on the contrary, it is rather for you⁺ to forgive and to comfort him, lest somehow such a one might be overwhelmed by more abundant grief. 8Therefore I exhort you⁺ to confirm love toward him.

9For this indeed also I wrote, so that I might know the proof of you⁺, whether you⁺ are obedient to everything. 10Now to whomever you⁺ forgive anything, I also do; and indeed to whom I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is on account of you⁺ in the face of Christ, 11so that we should not be exploited by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

Triumph in Christ

12Now having come to Troas for the gospel of Christ, a door also having been opened to me in the Lord, 13I have had no rest in my spirit in my not finding Titus my brother, but having taken leave of them, I went out to Macedonia.

14But thanks be to God, the One always leading us in triumph in Christ and making manifest the fragrance of the knowledge of Him through us in every place. 15For we are a sweet smell of Christ to God among those being saved and among those perishing: 16to one indeed a smell from death to death, but to one a smell from life to life.† And who is sufficient for these things?

17For we are not like the many,† peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity—but as from God—we speak before God in Christ.

Footnotes:

3 BYZ and TR include to you.
16 Or To the one, we are an odor of death and demise; to the other, a fragrance that brings life.
17 BYZ like others