2 Corinthians 2

2 ¹So I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. ²For if I hurt you, who is left to cheer me but the one I hurt? ³I wrote this so that when I came those who should make me rejoice would not pain me, confident in all of you that my joy is the joy of you all. ⁴Out of deep distress and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not to grieve you but to show you the overflowing love I have for you.

⁵But if anyone has caused pain, he has not so much pained me as, in part, all of you—I don't want to be too hard on him.

Forgive and Restore Him

⁶For such a person, this punishment by the majority is enough. ⁷So now instead you should forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. ⁸So I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. ⁹This is also why I wrote: to test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. ¹⁰Anyone you forgive, I forgive too. What I have forgiven—if anything—I forgave for your sake before Christ, ¹¹so that we would not be outwitted by Satan—for we are not unaware of his schemes.

¹²When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, a door opened for me in the Lord, ¹³yet my spirit had no rest, for I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye and went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴But thanks to our Father, who always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of knowing him. ^a a v14 A triumphal procession was a Roman victory parade in which a conquering general led his captives and burned fragrant incense along the route — Paul pictures our Father leading his people in Christ's victory. ¹⁵For we are the aroma of Christ to our Father among those being saved and those perishing, ¹⁶to one, a fragrance from death to death; to the other, a fragrance from life to life. And who is sufficient for this? ¹⁷For we're not, like so many, peddlers of our Father's word, but in sincerity, as from him, in his sight, we speak in Christ.