Study Desk

For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort.

We don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of our affliction that took place in Asia. We were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.

Because of this confidence, I planned to come to you first, so that you could have a second benefit,

Now when I planned this, was I of two minds? Or what I plan, do I plan in a purely human way so that I say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

I wrote this very thing so that when I came I wouldn’t have pain from those who ought to give me joy, because I am confident about all of you that my joy will also be yours.

If anyone has caused pain, he has caused pain not so much to me but to some degree—not to exaggerate—to all of you.

so that we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his schemes.

For we do not market the word of God for profit like so many. On the contrary, we speak with sincerity in Christ, as from God and before God.

Now if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters on stones, came with glory, so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses’s face because of its glory, which was set aside,

Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.

We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body.

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh.

So then, death is at work in us, but life in you.

Indeed, everything is for your benefit so that, as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.

So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.