1 I decided this for myself that I would not come again to you with sorrow.

2 For if I make you sad, who then makes me glad? It is the same one whom I made sad.

3 I wrote this very thing that when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice. I have confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.

4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears. Not that you should be made sorry, but that you might know the love that I have more abundantly for you.

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

6 Sufficient to such a one is this punishment that was inflicted by the many.

7 To the contrary you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his excess sorrow.

8 I urge you to confirm your love toward him.

9 I write for this purpose, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things.

10 Whoever you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes I have forgiven it in the presence of Christ,

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

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

13 I had no relief for my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother: but leaving them, I went to Macedonia.

14 Thanks to God, who always leads us in triumph triumphal procession in Christ. He makes known through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place.

15 For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God. We are an aroma for those who are saved and those who perish.

16 To the one an aroma of death leading to death and to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is sufficient for these things?

17 For we are not as the many, corrupting the word of God; but sincere and from God. We speak in Christ in the sight of God.