You can trust what I tell you. I did not visit you, because I wanted to give you the opportunity to obey the instructions that I wrote to you. Now that you have punished enough the man who caused those problems, I urge you to forgive him and to encourage him.

2 Corinthians 1:12—2:11

12 I am happy to say that I have behaved toward all people [MTY] in an honest and sincere way. My conscience assures me that this is true. Especially, I have behaved toward you honestly and sincerely because that is what God wants us to do. As I have done that, my thoughts have not been the thoughts that unbelieving people [MTY] think are wise. Instead, I have behaved toward people only as God wants me to, depending on God to help me in ways that I do not deserve. 13 I say that because in all my letters to you I have always written [LIT] clearly in a way that you can easily and completely understand when you read them. 14 Previously some of you, but not all of you, have completely understood that I am always honest and sincere with you. But I confidently expect that soon you will all be fully convinced about that. Then when the Lord Jesus [MTY] returns, you will all be able to say that you are pleased with me, just like I will be able to say that I am pleased with you.

15-16 15-16It was because I felt sure that all of you were pleased with me that I was planning to visit you on my way from here to Macedonia province. I also planned to visit you again on my way back from there, so that I could spend time with you twice, and be able to help you more, and I was hoping that you would give me things that I needed [EUP] for my journey to Judea province. 17 So then, even though I changed my mind later and did not do what I first planned to do, it was not because I did not have an important reason for changing my plans. Surely you do not really think that I decide what I am going to do like people who do not know God do! [RHQ] I am not like that. I am not a person who says to people, “Yes, certainly I will do that,” and then for no good reason changes his mind and says, “No, I will not do it.” 18 Just as surely as God always does what he says he will do, it is true that I have never said, “Yes, I will do this” when I really meant “No.” 19 I follow the example of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. When I, along with Silas and Timothy, taught you about Christ, we told you that he was not someone who said that he would do something and then did not do it. Jesus Christ never said to anyone, “Yes, I will do what you desire,” and then did not do it. 20 We(inc) know that is true, because everything that God promised to do for his people, he has done completely by sending Christ to save us. That is why we say, “Yes, it is true! God has done everything that he promised to do!” And we praise him for that! 21 Now it is only God himself who causes us (exc), as well as you, to keep on believing strongly in Christ. God is the one who chose us (inc) to belong to him and to have a close relationship with Christ. 22 He also sent his Holy Spirit into our (inc) lives to mark us as belonging to himself [MET]. Also, since he has sent his Spirit to live in us (inc), he wants us to know by this that he guarantees [MET] to give us every other ◄blessing/good thing► that he has promised.

23 So now I will tell you why I changed my mind and did not visit you as I intended to do: God himself knows that what I am telling you is true. The reason that I did not return to Corinth was so that I might not have to speak to you severely about the wrong that you had done. 24 It is not that Silas, Timothy and I want to boss you and tell you that you must believe only what we say. Not at all! On the contrary, we (exc) are working as partners with you in order to make you happy. We do not try to force you to believe everything that we believe, because we are sure that you are continuing to trust the Lord Jesus Christ and that you are remaining firmly committed to him.

2 Anyway, I definitely decided that I would not come to visit you again now. If I had come, I would have spoken severely to you again, and I would have made you unhappy as I did the last time I visited you. 2 And if I make you unhappy, I will have made unhappy the only people who can cheer me up, so ◄there will be none of you to cheer me up!/who would cheer me up?► [RHQ] 3 So, instead of going to visit you at that time, I wrote a letter and sent it to you. I wrote it the way I did so that you would know what you should do. Then when I come to visit you, you will not make me unhappy when you should be causing me to rejoice. I was quite sure that all of you would do what I told you to do in that letter, and because of that I would be happy and you would be happy, too. 4 I wrote to you the way I did because I felt very troubled and distressed about you. I was even crying very much as I wrote. My purpose in writing was not in order to make you feel bad, but, instead, in order that you might know how deeply/much I love you.

5 Now I want to write about the man who caused all this anguish. What he did was very wrong, but I know that it has caused you much more sorrow than it has caused me, because what he did has affected all of you to some extent. I say, “to some extent,” because I do not want to say that he has done more harm than he really has done. 6 Since he has now stopped sinning in that way, the punishment that nearly all of you decided was right for him has continued long enough. 7 So now, instead of punishing him any longer, you need to forgive him and deal kindly with him. If you do not forgive him, he may become so sad that he will begin to think that you will never forgive him (OR, will stop believing in Christ).

8 For those reasons, I beg you to forgive him and accept him into your group again, and by doing that assure him that you truly love him. 9 I feel sure that you will do as I ask, because when I wrote severely to you before, I did it to test you by finding out whether or not you really would do everything that I, as your apostle, asked you to do. 10 So since you obeyed what I told you before, I feel sure that now you will obey what I am writing in this letter and forgive the man, as I have done, because I indeed have forgiven him for the wrong thing that he did. Anything he needed me to forgive him for, I have forgiven, and Christ knows that I have forgiven him sincerely. I have done that mainly to help you so that you and I will again have fellowship with each other, and that you will accept him into your group again. 11 I want you to forgive him so that Satan will not be able to take advantage of the problems among us and make the situation worse. We know very well [LIT] that Satan is always planning to cause problems among us.