2 Corinthians 1

1 ¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of our Father, and Timothy our brother, to the church of our Father in Corinth, with all the holy ones throughout Achaia: ²Grace to you and peace from our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Father of All Comfort

³Blessed be our Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our suffering, so we can comfort others in all their suffering with the comfort we ourselves receive from our Father. ⁵As the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so our comfort also overflows through Christ. ⁶If we suffer, it's for your comfort and salvation; if we're comforted, it's for your comfort, worked out as you patiently endure the same suffering we suffer. ⁷Our hope for you is firm, knowing that as you share in the sufferings, so also you share in the comfort.

⁸We want you to know, brothers and sisters, of the suffering we faced in Asia: we were weighed down far beyond our strength, so that we gave up hope of even living. ⁹We felt we had received a death sentence, so we would rely not on ourselves but on our Father, who raises the dead. ¹⁰He rescued us from such a deadly threat, and will rescue us again; we have set our hope on him to keep rescuing us, ¹¹as you also help us by your prayers, so many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious gift given us through many prayers.

Paul's Change of Plans

¹²For this is our boast: our conscience testifies we lived in the world—especially toward you—with the holiness and sincerity of our Father, not worldly wisdom but the grace of our Father. ¹³We write you nothing but what you can read and even understand, and I hope you'll understand fully, ¹⁴as you have partly understood us: on the day of our Lord Jesus, you will boast of us as we will of you.

¹⁵With this confidence, I planned to come to you first, so you might have a second grace. ¹⁶I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia, return to you from Macedonia, and have you send me on to Judea. ¹⁷Was I fickle in planning this? Or do I plan according to the flesh, saying Yes, yes and No, no at once? ¹⁸As surely as our Father is faithful, our word to you has not been "Yes" and "No." ¹⁹For the Son of our Father, Jesus Christ, proclaimed among you through Silvanus, Timothy, and me, was not "Yes" and "No," but always "Yes" in him. ²⁰However many promises our Father made, in him they are "Yes"; so through him, too, we say "Amen" to our Father, for his glory.

²¹Now it is our Father who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, ²²who also sealed us and gave us his Holy Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee of what's coming. ^a a v22 The Greek word for guarantee is a business term — a down payment. Our Father gives the Holy Spirit as the first instalment of everything still coming, his pledge that he will finish what he started. ²³I call our Father as witness, on my life, that I did not return to Corinth to spare you. ²⁴Not that we control your faith, but we work together with you for your joy, since you stand firm by faith.