When I reached Troas, for the gospel of the Christ, and when a door was opened for me by the Lord, I got no relief for my spirit because I did not find Titus, my brother; so I took my leave of the people and went on to Macedonia.
Thanks be to God who constantly leads us in triumph through Christ and through us manifests the savor of the knowledge of him in every region; for we are the fragrance of Christ for God among those who go the way of salvation and those who go the way of perdition; to these, the smell of death for death, to those others the smell of life for life. Who is qualified for that? We do not, like most, go about cheapening the word of God, but speak, as it were, out of purity, from God in the presence of God through Christ.
Are we beginning to recommend ourselves to you once again? Or is it that we do not, as some do, need letters of recommendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all men; because you are displayed as the letter of Christ administered by us, written not in ink but in the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the heart's tablets of flesh.
Such is the confidence we have in God through the Christ; not that we are qualified in ourselves to reason out anything, as if it came from ourselves, but our qualification is from God, who qualified us to be ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. For if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on the stone, appeared in such glory that the sons of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses, which was perishable, because of the glory of that face; how can the ministry of the Spirit not be in even greater glory? If the ministry of condemnation is glory, all the more does the ministry of righteousness excel in glory. For what has been glorified is no longer glorious insofar as there is a glory that surpasses it; for if what is perishable has glory, how much greater is glory in what endures.
Having such hope as this, we speak out very plainly, not as when Moses put the veil over his face because the sons of Israel could not gaze upon the end of a glory that was passing away. But their minds were impenetrable. For until this very day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read and is not taken away, because only with Christ does it come to an end; but until this day when Moses is read the veil lies upon their hearts; but when anyone turns to the Lord the veil is taken away. And the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is liberty. And all of us, with faces unveiled seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as from the Spirit of the Lord.
We therefore, having this ministry bestowed in mercy upon us, do not weaken; but we have renounced acts which are hidden for shame, not going the way of wickedness or falsifying the word of God, but, by making plain the truth, presenting ourselves to the full consciousness of mankind before God. But if our gospel is hidden at all, it is hidden from those who are on their way to perdition. For them the God of this world has blinded the minds of these unbelievers so that the radiance of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, cannot shine upon them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For the God who said: Out of the darkness light shall shine, has made a light in our hearts for the radiance of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
We keep this treasure in vessels of clay, so that the supremacy of power may be God's, not ours; always afflicted but not crushed, bewildered but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always carrying the death of Jesus in our bodies so that the life of Jesus also may be made manifest in our bodies; for constantly we the living are handed over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be made manifest in this mortal flesh of ours. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
And having the same spirit of faith as in what is written: I believed, therefore I spoke; we also believe, therefore we also speak, knowing that he who raised up Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and bring us to him, along with you. For all is for your sake, so that grace increasing through greater numbers may make thanksgiving abound to the glory of God. So we do not weaken, and even if our outer man is destroyed, our inner man is renewed day by day. The light momentary affliction builds in us an ever greater and greater mass of eternal glory, in us who look not on things visible but on things invisible, for visible things are of the moment, but invisible things, eternal.
For we know that if our home in this earthly tabernacle is destroyed, we have from God a home which is a building not made by hands, and eternal, in heaven. For while we are in this one we make complaints, longing to put on above it, like a garment, our habitation in heaven, if we are to be found still in our bodies covered and not naked. For we who are still in this tabernacle groan under our burden, because we wish not to put it off but to put on the other in addition, so that death may be swallowed up by life. And he who brought us to this is God, by granting us a deposit of the Spirit.
Always confident then and knowing that while we live in the body we live away from the Lord, for we go by what we believe, not what we see, we are of good courage and satisfied to leave the body and be at home with the Lord. So we aspire, whether in the body or out of it, to be pleasing to him; for we all must be shown for what we are before the tribnnal of the Christ, so that each may receive good or evil according to what he did in the flesh.
Knowing then the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade men. To God we are well known; and I hope that we are also well knownwn to you in your own consciences. We are not recommending ourselves to you again, but offering you some cause for pride in us, so that you may have an answer to those whose pride is in appearance and not in the heart. If we are out of our wits, it is for God; if we are in our right minds, it is for you. For the love of the Christ constrains us as we consider that he, alone, died for all (but really all died); and he died for all so that all who live may live, no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them, and was raised from the dead.
Thus from now on we know no one in the flesh. Even if we did know Christ in the flesh, we now no longer know him thus. So that one who is in Christ is a new creature; the old is gone, behold, the new is here; and all is from God, who reconciled us with himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of this reconciliation, because when God was in Christ he reconciled the world with himself, not counting their sins against them, and establishing in us the word of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were summoning you through us. For Christ's sake, we implore you, be reconciled with God. He made the one who knew no sin into sin for our sake, so that we, in him, may become the justice of God.
Working with him, we implore you not to let God's grace be given in vain. For he says: At a favorable time I heard you, and on the day for salvation I came to your rescue. Behold, now is the favorable time, now is the day for salvation. We say this, giving no offence in any way, lest our ministry be blamed, but in every way showing ourselves to be ministers of God by enduring much; in afflictions, in duress, in anguish; through beatings, through imprisonments, through riots, through labors, through sleeplessness, through starvation; by purity, by understanding, by forbearance, by goodness, by the Holy Spirit, by undissembling love, by the word of truth, by the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness in the right hand and the left hand; through glory and dishonor, through slander and praise; as false and truthful, as unknown and recognized, as dying, and behold, we live, as punished but not with death, as in pain but always joyful, as poor but making many rich, as having nothing and possessing everything.