2 Corinthians 2

1For I settled this in my own mind: I would not come to you again bringing grief. 2For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad, except the very ones I have grieved? 3That is the very reason I wrote to you before: so that when I came I would not be grieved by the very people who ought to give me joy. For I was sure of every one of you, sure that what gives me joy gives joy to all of you. 4I wrote to you out of great affliction and anguish of heart, and with many tears. I did not write to make you grieve. I wrote so that you would come to know my love, which overflows toward you above all.

5Now if someone has caused grief, he has caused it not to me but to all of you, at least in part (I do not want to press the point too hard). 6The penalty that most of you imposed on this man is enough for him. 7So now you should turn the other way: forgive him and comfort him, or he may be swallowed up by grief that is more than he can bear. 8So I urge you to confirm your love for him openly. 9For this was another purpose of my writing: to learn whether you would prove yourselves true, obedient in every matter. 10If you forgive anyone anything, I forgive that person too. For whatever I have forgiven, so far as I have had anything to forgive, I have forgiven for your sake, in the presence of Christ, 11so that Satan does not gain the advantage over us. We know well enough what he has in mind.

12When I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ, I found a door standing open for me in the Lord’s work. 13Even so, my spirit could not settle, because Titus my brother was nowhere to be found. So I took leave of the believers there and set out for Macedonia.

14But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us along in his triumphal procession, and who through us makes known in every place the fragrance that is the knowledge of him. 15For to God we are the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. 16To some it is a fragrance of death that leads to death; to others, a fragrance of life that leads to life. And who is fit for a calling like this? 17For we are not like the many who trade in the word of God for gain. We speak with pure motives, as people from God, in the sight of God, in Christ.