7 Seeing then we have these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, and complete our sanctification in the fear of God.
2 Receive us. We have wronged no one. We have corrupted no one. We have defrauded no one.
3 I speak it not to your condemnation. For I have said before that you are in our hearts, to die and live together.
4 I use great boldness of speech toward you. I rejoice greatly in you. I am filled with comfort and am exceedingly joyous in all our tribulation.
5 For when we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. But we were troubled on every side, fightings without, and terrors within.
6 But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us at the coming of Titus;
7 and only not by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was comforted by you, when he told us your great desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me, so that I rejoiced much more.
8 For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent. Though, I did repent. For I perceive that the same letter made you sorry, though it were but for a season.
9 I now rejoice, not that you were sorry, but that you sorrowed unto repentance. For you sorrowed in a godly way, so that in nothing were you hurt by us.
10 For godly sorrow causes repentance unto salvation, not to be reconsidered. But the worldly sorrow causes death.
11 For behold, this thing of which you have been godly sorry, what great care it has wrought in you; yea, what acquittal of yourselves; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, how great desire; yea, what a zeal; yea, what vengeance. In all things, you have shown yourselves to be pure in this matter.
12 Therefore, though I wrote to you, I did not do it for the sake of the one who had done the wrong, nor the sake of the one who had the injury, but that our care toward you in the sight of God might appear to you.
13 Therefore we were comforted, because you were comforted. But we rejoiced even more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all.
14 For if I have boasted anything to him of you, I have not been ashamed. But as I have spoken to you all things in truth, even so our boasting to Titus was true.
15 And his inward affection is more abundant toward you when he remembers the obedience of you all, and how you received him with fear and trembling.
16 I rejoice that I may put my confidence in you in all things.