2 Corinthians 1

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God that is in Corinth, together with all the holy ones who are in the whole of Achaia: ²grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we can comfort those in any affliction through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows. ⁶If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is at work in the endurance of the same sufferings that we also suffer. ⁷And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you are sharers in the sufferings, so also in the comfort.

⁸For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction that came upon us in Asia: we were weighed down utterly, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of living. ⁹Indeed, we ourselves had received the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we would not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. ¹⁰He rescued us from so great a death and will rescue us; we have set our hope on him that he will rescue us yet again, ¹¹as you also join in helping us by your prayer, so that thanks may be given on our behalf by many people for the gift granted to us through many.

¹²For this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with holiness and sincerity that come from God, not with fleshly wisdom but with the grace of God. ¹³For we write nothing else to you than what you read and indeed understand, and I hope that you will understand fully, ¹⁴just as you have understood us in part, that we are your boast, just as you are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

¹⁵And with this confidence I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second favor, ¹⁶and to go by way of you into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you and be sent on my way by you to Judea. ¹⁷So when I wanted this, I was not being fickle, was I? Or do I plan what I plan according to the flesh, so that with me it is “Yes, yes” and “No, no”? ¹⁸But as God is faithful, our word to you is not “Yes” and “No.” ¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you through us, through me and Silvanus and Timothy, did not become “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has become “Yes.” ²⁰For as many as are the promises of God, in him is the “Yes.” Therefore also through him is the “Amen,” to the glory of God through us. ²¹Now the one who establishes us with you in Christ and who anointed us is God, ²²who also sealed us and gave the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.

²³But I call on God as witness against my life: it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth. ²⁴Not that we lord it over your faith; rather, we are fellow workers for your joy, for by faith you stand.

Translation notes 12

1:1 — “Assembly”; “holy ones.” The word often rendered “church” is translated “assembly” throughout, as in earlier books. “Holy ones” renders the ordinary designation for believers, commonly “saints”; it does not single out an exceptionally devout group.

1:3–7 — “Comfort.” One Greek word family occurs ten times in these five verses, as noun and verb. It covers comfort, consolation, and encouragement, and elsewhere in the letter it means an appeal or urging. The draft keeps “comfort” wherever the sense is consolation so that the repetition can be heard; where the same word means an appeal or urging (for example 2:8; 5:20; 8:6; 10:1), the English changes with the sense.

1:5 — “The sufferings of Christ.” The Greek can mean sufferings that belong to Christ, sufferings endured for him, or sufferings that share in his. The draft keeps the compact phrase.

1:8 — “In Asia.” The Roman province in western Asia Minor, not the continent. The letter does not identify the event.

1:10 — “So great a death.” The Greek speaks of rescue from a death, that is, from a mortal danger; the draft keeps the stronger wording.

1:11 — “By many people”; “through many.” “By many people” is literally “from many faces,” the first of the letter's face idioms. “Through many” can describe how the gift reached Paul (through many people's prayers) or how the thanks will be given (through many people); the draft keeps the Greek's bare phrase without deciding.

1:12 — “Holiness and sincerity.” The Greek base reads “holiness”; other editions read a word meaning “simplicity” or “sincerity,” which differs by only a few letters. The two readings are documented in the study notes. “Fleshly wisdom” keeps the letter's flesh language, which recurs throughout.

1:15 — “A second favor.” The word is the ordinary word for “grace.” Paul had planned two visits, on the way to Macedonia and on the way back; the favor is either the second visit or the double benefit of both.

1:17 — “Fickle”; “according to the flesh.” The first term is literally “lightness.” The doubled “Yes, yes” and “No, no” describes saying yes and no in the same breath; the draft renders it as reported speech, not as the oath formula of Matthew 5:37, though whether Paul echoes that saying is disputed. In verse 13 “understand fully” can also be read “understand to the end.”

1:19 — “Silvanus.” The Silas of Acts 15–18, under the Latin form of the name that Paul uses.

1:21–22 — “Anointed”; “down payment.” “Anointed” and “Christ” share a root in Greek: God establishes us in the Anointed One and anointed us. The “down payment” is a commercial term for a first installment that guarantees the rest; “pledge” and “guarantee” are familiar alternatives.

1:23 — “Against my life.” Paul calls God to witness against his own life, that is, staking his life on the truth of the statement; the word can also be rendered “soul.”