A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
2 Corinthians 1
2 Corinthians 1 is the opening chapter of the forty-seventh book of the Bible. The 24-verse chapter opens Paul's most personal letter with an unusual emphasis on suffering, comfort, and the strained history between him and the Corinthian church.
The chapter opens with Paul's standard greeting, identifying himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, writing alongside Timothy. He addresses the church of God in Corinth along with all the saints throughout the surrounding region of Achaia.
The opening blessing is unusual. Rather than thanking God for the recipients' faith, Paul praises God as the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts believers in their afflictions so that they can comfort others. The word "comfort" appears repeatedly. The argument is that Paul's own sufferings have equipped him to be useful to the Corinthians.
Paul then describes a recent crisis. He and his companions experienced a severe affliction in the province of Asia, so severe that they despaired of life itself. They felt they had received the sentence of death. But God who raises the dead delivered them. Paul attributes this deliverance partly to the prayers of the Corinthians.
The chapter then turns to a sensitive point. Paul had planned to visit the Corinthians on his way to Macedonia and to stop again on his way back. He changed his plans. The Corinthians have apparently accused him of fickleness or unreliability. Paul defends himself: God's faithfulness is the basis for his own; the change of plans was not due to a wavering character but to a wish to spare them another painful visit. The chapter closes with Paul calling God as his witness that he held off coming to Corinth to give the church time to set things right on its own.
Verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:
Verse 2. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
Verse 4. who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
Verse 5. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
Verse 6. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which accomplishes in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we experience.
Verse 7. And our hope for you is sure, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you will share in our comfort.
Verse 8. We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the hardships we encountered in the province of Asia. We were under a burden far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.
Verse 9. Indeed, we felt we were under the sentence of death, in order that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.
Verse 10. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. In Him we have placed our hope that He will yet again deliver us,
Verse 11. as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the favor shown us in answer to their prayers.
Verse 12. For this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in relation to you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God—not in worldly wisdom, but in the grace of God.
Verse 13. For we do not write you anything that is beyond your ability to read and understand. And I hope that you will understand us completely,
Verse 14. as you have already understood us in part, that you may boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of our Lord Jesus.
Verse 15. Confident of this, I planned to visit you first, so that you might receive a double blessing.
Verse 16. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to return to you from Macedonia, and then to have you help me on my way to Judea.
Verse 17. When I planned this, did I do it carelessly? Or do I make my plans by human standards, so as to say “Yes, yes” and also “No, no”?
Verse 18. But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”
Verse 19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in Him it has always been “Yes.”
Verse 20. For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him, our “Amen” is spoken to the glory of God.
Verse 21. Now it is God who establishes both us and you in Christ. He anointed us,
Verse 22. placed His seal on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a pledge of what is to come.
Verse 23. I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.
Verse 24. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are fellow workers with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm.
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