2 Cô-rinh-tô 7

¹Dear friends, since these promises are ours, let us wash ourselves clean of every stain on body and spirit, and carry our holiness through to its goal as we live in the fear of God.

Make room for us

²Open your hearts to us. We have done no wrong to anyone, brought no one to ruin, and cheated no one. ³I am not saying this to condemn you. I have told you before: you are in our hearts, and we are bound to you in death and in life. ⁴I can speak to you very openly, and I have every reason to be proud of you. Comfort fills me, and joy floods over me in spite of all our hardship.

Titus brings comfort

⁵Even when we came to Macedonia, there was no relief for us in our human weakness. We met hardship at every turn: strife all around us, fear in our hearts. ⁶But God, who comforts those who are brought low, comforted us by bringing Titus to us. ⁷And it was not only his arrival that comforted us, but also the comfort he himself had found among you. He told us how you long for me, how you mourn over what happened, how eager you are to stand up for me. So my joy was greater still. ⁸So even if my letter grieved you, I do not regret it. I did regret it for a while, for I see that the letter grieved you, if only for a short time. ⁹Now, though, I rejoice. It is not your grief that makes me glad, but the fact that it brought you to repentance. You grieved in God’s way, and so you have lost nothing because of us.^{ab 10}Grief that follows God’s way produces repentance that leads to salvation, a repentance no one will ever regret. But grief that follows the world’s way produces death. ¹¹Think what this grieving in God’s way has done for you! How earnest it has made you, how eager to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how full of longing, how zealous, how ready to see the wrong punished! In everything you have shown that you are clear of blame in this affair. ¹²So although I wrote to you, my aim was not the man who did the wrong, nor the one who was wronged. I wrote so that your earnest care for us would become plain to you yourselves, there in the sight of God.^{cde 13}That is why we have been comforted.

The joy of Titus

And on top of our own comfort, we rejoiced even more over the joy Titus had, because all of you had put his spirit at ease. ¹⁴I had spoken proudly of you to him, and you did not let me down. We have always spoken the truth to you, and in the same way the proud things we said about you to Titus have turned out to be the truth. ¹⁵His deep love goes out to you all the more when he recalls how every one of you obeyed, and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling. ¹⁶I rejoice that in every way I can rely on you.