Restoring the repentant
1 So I decided not to return to you myself and cause more sorrow. 2 After all, if I make you sad, who will cheer me up, if not those I would be making sad? 3 And this is why I wrote to you, so that I wouldn’t have to come and be saddened by those I should have been celebrating with. But I am confident in all of you, who are my happiness.
4 I wrote to you with a very heavy heart and through many tears, not to make you sad but so that you will know the abounding love I have for you. 5 Yet if that person has caused sorrow, it wasn’t just me they made sad but all of you— and I’m not exaggerating. 6 The discipline administered by the majority of you was enough for him. 7 So now, turn around and show him mercy and consolation, so that he will not be consumed by extreme sorrow. 8 Therefore I plead with you to affirm him in love.
9 Now I’m also writing this to test you and see whether or not you are paying attention to everything I told you. 10 If you have granted him mercy then so have I, for whatever there was to grant, I did so through you in the presence of Christ. 11 This way Satan will have no way to stake a false claim on us, for we are not ignorant of his scheming.
The message we spread
12 When I arrived in Troas the Master opened a door for me for the good news of Christ. 13 But I had no relief in my spirit because I could not find my brother Titus, so I left them and went to Macedonia.
14 Now thank God, the one who always grants us victory with Christ! He spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him through us everywhere, 15 for we are the fragrance of God— both to those who are being saved and those who are being destroyed. 16 To the latter we are the stench of impending death, but to the former we are the fragrance of promised life. But who is up to the task? 17 For we are not like most people who peddle the Word of God, but instead we are sincere because we speak of God and from God with Christ.