1 Paul, by God's will an apostle of Jesus Christ, and Timothy, our brother, to the church of God at Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation,
4 who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those in every affliction through the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound toward us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.
6 And whether we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which works in the enduring of the same sufferings that we too suffer; or whether we are consoled, it is for your consolation and salvation; and our hope on your behalf is firm,
7 knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also of the consolation.
8 For we do not wish you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that befell us in Asia, that we were burdened exceedingly, above our strength, so that we despaired even of living.
9 But we ourselves had the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we might not trust in ourselves but in God, who raises the dead;
10 who rescued us from so great a death and does rescue us; in him we have set our hope that he will yet rescue us,
11 while you also work together for us by your prayer, so that thanks may be given by many people on our behalf for the gift bestowed on us through many.
12 For our boasting is this, the witness of our conscience: that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have behaved ourselves in the world, and more especially toward you.
13 For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and recognize, and I hope you will go on recognizing it to the end,
14 just as you have already recognized in part that we are your reason for boasting, as you are ours, on the day of the Lord Jesus.
15 It was with this confidence that I intended to come to you first, so that you might receive a second benefit,
16 and to go on by way of you into Macedonia, then come back to you from Macedonia and be helped on my journey by you to Judea.
17 So when I intended this, did I act with fickleness? Or what I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, so that with me it should be "Yes, yes" and "No, no"?
18 But God is faithful: our word toward you was not yes and no.
19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yes and no, but in him it has been yes.
20 For all the promises of God in him are yes, and in him amen, to the glory of God through us.
21 And the one who confirms us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,
22 who also sealed us and gave the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.
23 Now I call on God as witness upon my soul that it was to spare you that I did not come to Corinth again.
24 Not that we are masters over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy; for by faith you stand.