Chronological NT Plan

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Timothy, To the church of God which is at Corinth with all the saints who are throughout Achaia:

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

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

⁴who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

⁶But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer;

⁷and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are partners in our sufferings, so also you are in our comfort.

⁸For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of our affliction which occurred in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.

⁹Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead,

¹⁰who rescued us from so great a danger of death, and will rescue us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us,

¹¹if you also join in helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons in our behalf for the favor granted to us through the prayers of many.

¹²For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you.

¹³For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope you will understand until the end;

¹⁴just as you also partially did understand us, that we are your reason to be proud as you also are ours, on the day of our Lord Jesus.

¹⁵In this confidence I intended at first to come to you, so that you might twice receive a blessing;

¹⁶that is, to pass your way into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and by you to be helped on my journey to Judea.

¹⁷Therefore, I was not vacillating when I intended to do this, was I? Or what I decide, do I decide according to the flesh, so that with me there will be yes, yes and no, no at the same time?

¹⁸But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no.

¹⁹For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not yes and no, but has been yes in Him.

²⁰For as many as the promises of God are, in Him they are yes; therefore through Him also is our Amen to the glory of God through us.

²¹Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,

²²who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.

²³But I call God as witness to my soul, that it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.

²⁴Not that we domineer over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy; for in your faith you are standing firm.

¹But I decided this for my own sake, that I would not come to you in sorrow again.

²For if I cause you sorrow, who then will be the one making me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?

³This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy was the joy of you all.

⁴For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you.

⁵But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not for me, but in some degree—not to say too much—for all of you.

⁶Sufficient for such a person is this punishment which was imposed by the majority,

⁷so that on the other hand, you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a person might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

⁸Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him.

⁹For to this end I also wrote, so that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things.

¹⁰But one whom you forgive anything, I also forgive; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did so for your sakes in the presence of Christ,

¹¹so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

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

¹³I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus my brother; but saying goodbye to them, I went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us reveals the fragrance of the knowledge of Him in every place.

¹⁵For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing:

¹⁶to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate 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 in Christ in the sight of God.

¹Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?

²You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all people,

³revealing yourselves, that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

⁴Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ.

⁵Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,

⁶who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷But if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stones, came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,

⁸how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?

⁹For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness excel in glory.

¹⁰For indeed what had glory in this case has no glory, because of the glory that surpasses it.

¹¹For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

¹²Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech,

¹³and we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away.

¹⁴But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.

¹⁵But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts;

¹⁶but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

¹⁸But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

¹Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart,

²but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in trickery nor distorting the word of God, but by the open proclamation of the truth commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in the sight of God.

³And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,

⁴in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

⁵For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants on account of Jesus.

⁶For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

⁷But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;

⁸we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;

⁹persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed;

¹⁰always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

¹¹For we who live are constantly being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh.

¹²So death works in us, but life in you.

¹³But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written: “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also speak,

¹⁴knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus, and will present us with you.

¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, so that grace, having spread to more and more people, will cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day.

¹⁷For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,

¹⁸while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.