Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow workers of your joy; for by faith you stand.

I have told you before, and foretell as if I were present the second time, and now being absent I write to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare;

since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you.

For we have no power against the truth, but on behalf of truth.

Therefore I write these things being absent, that when present I should not use sharpness, according to the authority which the Lord has given me for building up and not for pulling down.

Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead),

For if in anything I have exulted to him about you, I am not ashamed. But as we spoke all things to you in truth, even so our exulting to Titus was found true.

For though I might desire to boast, I will not be foolish, for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, that no one should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me.

For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep safe what I have committed to Him until that Day.