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1
But I judged this for myself not to come again unto you in grief.
2
For if I grieve you, who then [is] he that gladdeneth me, if not he that is grieved by me?
3
And I wrote this very thing, that I might not on coming have grief from those from whom I ought to have joy, having trust in you all that my joy is [that] of you all.
4
For out of much tribulation and distress of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that ye should be grieved, but that ye may know the love that I have very abundantly unto you.
5
But if anyone hath grieved, he hath grieved not me, but in part (that I may not press heavily) all of you.
6
Sufficient to such an one [is] this rebuke, which [is] by the many;
7
so that, on the contrary, ye should rather forgive and comfort, lest somehow such an one be swallowed up with excessive grief.
8
Wherefore I exhort you to ratify love toward him.
9
For I wrote also for this, and that I might know the proof of you, whether as to all things ye are obedient.
10
But to whom ye forgive anything, I also; for I too, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, [do so] for your sake in Christ’s person,
11
that we might not be overreached by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices.
12
Now when I came unto the Troad for the gospel of Christ, a door being opened to me in [the] Lord,
13
I had no rest in my spirit at not finding Titus, my brother; but, having taken leave of them, I went forth into Macedonia.
14
But thanks [be] to God that always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the odour of his knowledge through us in every place.
15
Because we are a sweet odour of Christ to God in those to be saved, and in those that perish:
16
to the one an odour from death unto death, but to the others an odour from life unto life; and who [is] sufficient for these things?
17
For we are not as the many, corrupting the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, before God, we speak in Christ.