If others receive this right from you, are we not more deserving? But we have not made use of this right. Instead we endure everything so that we may not be a hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

Indeed we felt as if the sentence of death had been passed against us, ¹  so that we would not trust in ourselves ²  but in God who raises the dead.

For our reason for confidence ¹  is this: the testimony of our conscience, that with pure motives ²  and sincerity which are from God ³  – not by human wisdom ⁴  but by the grace of God – we conducted ourselves in the world, and all the more ⁵  toward you.

revealing ¹  that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, ²  written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets ³  but on tablets of human hearts.

For we groan while we are in this tent, ¹  since we are weighed down, ²  because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

For if I have boasted to him about anything concerning you, I have not been embarrassed by you, ¹  but just as everything we said to you was true, ²  so our boasting to Titus about you ³  has proved true as well.

But as you excel ¹  in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, and in all eagerness and in the love from us that is in you ²  – make sure that you excel ³  in this act of kindness ⁴  too.

Now we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong, not so that we may appear to have passed the test, ¹  but so that you may do what is right ²  even if we may appear to have failed the test. ³ 

But when I saw that they were not behaving consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas ¹  in front of them all, “If you, although you are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you try to force ²  the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. ¹  Scripture ²  does not say, “and to the descendants,” ³  referring to many, but “and to your descendant,” ⁴  referring to one, who is Christ.

My confident hope ¹  is that I will in no way be ashamed ²  but that with complete boldness, even now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or die. ³ 

For from you the message of the Lord ¹  has echoed forth not just in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place reports of your faith in God have spread, ²  so that we do not need to say anything.

Because of this, in fact, I suffer as I do. ¹  But I am not ashamed, because I know the one in whom my faith is set ²  and I am convinced that he is able to protect what has been entrusted to me ³  until that day. ⁴ 

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” ¹  Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by ²  my works.

Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. ¹  The old commandment is the word that you have already ²  heard.

because all that is in the world (the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions) ¹  is not from the Father, but is from the world.

In this ¹  is love: not that ²  we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice ³  for our sins.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. ¹  The ²  one who fears punishment ³  has not been perfected in love.

We know that everyone fathered ¹  by God does not sin, but God ²  protects ³  the one he has fathered, and the evil one cannot touch him.

But I have a few things against you: You have some people there who follow the teaching of Balaam, ¹  who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block ²  before the people ³  of Israel so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. ⁴