1So I made up my mind not to pay you another painful visit. 2For if I cause you pain, who is left to cheer me but the very one I have pained? 3That is why I wrote as I did: so that when I came I would not be pained by those who ought to make me glad. I am confident about all of you, that my joy is the joy of all of you. 4I wrote to you out of great affliction and anguish of heart, with many tears — not to cause you pain, but to let you know how deeply I love you.
Forgive the man who caused the pain
5If someone has caused pain, he has not pained me but, in some measure — I will not overstate it — all of you. 6For such a man, the punishment imposed by the majority is enough. 7Now you should do the opposite: forgive him and console him, or he may be swallowed up by too much grief. 8So I urge you to confirm your love for him. 9This is also why I wrote: to test you and see whether you are obedient in everything. 10Anyone you forgive, I forgive as well. Whatever I have forgiven — if I have forgiven anything — I did it for your sake in the presence of the Christ, 11so that Satan would not outwit us; we are not ignorant of his schemes.
The fragrance of the knowledge of God
12When I came to Troas for the gospel of the Christ, and a door stood open for me in the Lord, 13I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia. 14But thanks be to God, who always leads us in his triumphal procession in the Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15For we are the aroma of Christ to God, among those being saved and among those perishing: 16to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. And who is equal to this? 17We are not like so many, peddling the word of God; we speak in the Christ with sincerity, as men sent from God and standing before God.
