001:001 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God— and our brother Timothy: To the Church of God in Corinth, with all God's people throughout Greece.
001:002 May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
001:003 Heartfelt thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—
the Father who is full of compassion and the God who
gives all comfort.
001:004 He comforts us in our every affliction so that we may be able
to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction by means
of the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
001:005 For just as we have more than our share of suffering for
the Christ, so also through the Christ we have more than our
share of comfort.
001:006 But if, on the one hand, we are enduring affliction, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if, on the other hand, we are receiving comfort, it is for your comfort which is produced within you through your patient fortitude under the same sufferings as those which we also are enduring.
001:007 And our hope for you is stedfast; for we know that as you are partners with us in the sufferings, so you are also partners in the comfort.
001:008 For as for our troubles which came upon us in the province of Asia, we would have you know, brethren, that we were exceedingly weighed down, and felt overwhelmed, so that we renounced all hope even of life.
001:009 Nay, we had, as we still have, the sentence of death within
our own selves, in order that our confidence may repose,
not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead to life.
001:010 He it is who rescued us from so imminent a death, and will
do so again; and we have a firm hope in Him that He will
also rescue us in all the future,
001:011 while you on your part lend us your aid in entreaty for us,
so that from many lips thanksgivings may rise on our behalf
for the boon granted to us at the intercession of many.
001:012 For the reason for our boasting is this—the testimony of our own conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, and in reliance not on worldly wisdom but on the gracious help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and above all in our relations with you.
001:013 For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have
written before, or from what indeed you already recognize
as truth and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end;
001:014 just as some few of you have recognized us as your reason
for boasting, even as you will be ours, on the day of
Jesus our Lord.
001:015 It was because I entertained this confidence that I intended
to visit you before going elsewhere—so that you might receive
a twofold proof of God's favour—
001:016 and to pass by way of Corinth into Macedonia. Then my plan
was to return from Macedonia to you, and be helped forward
by you to Judaea.
001:017 Did I display any vacillation or caprice in this?
Or the purposes which I form—do I form them on worldly principles,
now crying "Yes, yes," and now "No, no"?
001:018 As certainly as God is faithful, our language to you is not now "Yes" and now "No."
001:019 For Jesus Christ the Son of God—He who was proclaimed
among you by us, that is by Silas and Timothy and myself—
did not show Himself a waverer between "Yes" and "No."
But it was and always is "Yes" with Him.
001:020 For all the promises of God, whatever their number, have their
confirmation in Him; and for this reason through Him also our "Amen"
acknowledges their truth and promotes the glory of God
through our faith.
001:021 But He who is making us as well as you stedfast through union
with the Anointed One, and has anointed us, is God,
001:022 and He has also set His seal upon us, and has put His Spirit
into our hearts as a pledge and foretaste of future blessing.