The God Who Comforts Afflicted Servants

2 Corinthians 1

1:1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

1:2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,

1:4who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

1:5For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, even so our comfort also abounds through Christ.

1:6But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.

1:7Our hope for you is steadfast, knowing that, since you are partakers of the sufferings, so you are also of the comfort.

1:8For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers, concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia: that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life.

1:9Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,

1:10who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver, on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us,

1:11you also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift given to us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on your behalf.

1:12For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.

1:13For we write no other things to you than what you read or even acknowledge, and I hope you will acknowledge to the end—

1:14as also you acknowledged us in part—that we are your boasting, even as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

1:15In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit,

1:16and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be sent forward by you on my journey to Judea.

1:17When I therefore planned this, did I show fickleness? Or the things that I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be the “Yes, yes” and the “No, no?”

1:18But as God is faithful, our word toward you was not “Yes and no.”

1:19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me, Silvanus, and Timothy—was not “Yes and no,” but in him is “Yes.”

1:20For however many are the promises of God, in him is the “Yes.” Therefore also through him is the “Amen”, to the glory of God through us.

1:21Now he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,

1:22who also sealed us and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.

1:23But I call God for a witness to my soul, that to spare you, I didn’t come to Corinth.

1:24We don’t control your faith, but are fellow workers with you for your joy. For you stand firm in faith.

2 Corinthians 2

2:1But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow.

2:2For if I make you grieve, then who will make me glad but he who is made to grieve by me?

2:3And I wrote this very thing to you, so that when I came, I wouldn’t have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy would be shared by all of you.

2:4For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made to grieve, but that you might know the love that I have so abundantly for you.

2:5But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in part (that I not press too heavily) to you all.

2:6This punishment which was inflicted by the many is sufficient for such a one;

2:7so that, on the contrary, you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his excessive sorrow.

2:8Therefore I beg you to confirm your love toward him.

2:9For to this end I also wrote, that I might know the proof of you, whether you are obedient in all things.

2:10Now I also forgive whomever you forgive anything. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ,

2:11that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

2:12Now when I came to Troas for the Good News of Christ, and when a door was opened to me in the Lord,

2:13I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went out into Macedonia.

2:14Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place.

2:15For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God in those who are being saved and in those who perish:

2:16to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

2:17For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.