1So, dear friends, since we have these promises, let us make ourselves clean from everything that makes the body or the spirit dirty. Let us make our holiness complete, in the fear of God.
2Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one. We have ruined no one. We have cheated no one.
3I do not say this to condemn you. I have said before that you are in our hearts, so that we would die with you and live with you.
4I speak to you very boldly. I boast about you a great deal. I am filled with comfort. In all our trouble my joy overflows.
5When we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest. We were troubled on every side. Outside there were fights, and inside there were fears.
6But God, who comforts those who are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus.
7And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort he had received from you. He told us how much you longed for me, how you mourned, and how strongly you cared for me. So I rejoiced even more.
8Even though I made you sorry with a letter, I am not sorry now, though I was sorry before. I see that the same letter made you sorry, but only for a while.
9Now I rejoice, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repent. You were made sorry in a godly way, so that you suffered no loss from us at all.
10Godly sorrow works repentance that leads to salvation, and no one regrets it. But the sorrow of the world works death.
11Look at what this very thing did, this godly sorrow of yours: what care it worked in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what anger, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishing of the wrong. In every way you have shown yourselves to be clear in this matter.
12So then, though I wrote to you, I did not do it for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong. I did it so that our care for you might be made plain to you in the sight of God.
13That is why we were comforted by your comfort. And we rejoiced even more over the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all.
14If I have boasted to him about you in anything, I am not ashamed. Just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting to Titus has proved to be true as well.
15And his love for you is greater still, as he remembers how you all obeyed, and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling.
16So I rejoice that I can have confidence in you in everything.