1But I decided this for myself: not to come to you again in sorrow.
2For if I cause you sorrow, then who is there to make me glad but the one being grieved by me?
3And I wrote this very thing so that when I came I might not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice, since I am confident about you all that my joy is the joy of you all.
4For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you through many tears, not so that you would be grieved, but so that you might know the love that I have more abundantly for you.
5But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has not grieved me, but in part—so that I may not overstate it—all of you.
6Sufficient for such a person is this punishment inflicted by the majority,
7so that, on the contrary, you should rather forgive and comfort him, lest such a person be swallowed up by excessive sorrow.
8Therefore I urge you to confirm your love for him.
9For this is also why I wrote: so that I might know the proof of you, whether you are obedient in all things.
10Now anyone you forgive, I also forgive; for indeed what I have forgiven—if I have forgiven anything—has been for your sake in the presence of Christ,
11so that we might not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes.
12Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened for me in the Lord,
13I had no relief in my spirit because I did not find Titus my brother; but taking leave of them, I went out to Macedonia.
14But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us reveals the fragrance of the knowledge of him in every place.
15For we are the fragrance of Christ to God among those being saved and among those perishing:
16to the one, a fragrance from death to death; to the other, a fragrance from life to life. And who is sufficient for these things?
17For we are not like the many who peddle the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God we speak in Christ before God.
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