¹ Therefore, as God’s fellow workers, we also appeal to you not to receive his loving kindness in vain.

² For he says — ‘At the time for acceptance I listened to you, And on the day of deliverance I helped you.’ Now is the time for acceptance! Now is the day of deliverance!

³ Never do we put an obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.

⁴ No, we are trying to commend ourselves under all circumstances, as God’s ministers should — in many an hour of endurance, in troubles, in hardships, in difficulties,

⁵ in floggings, in imprisonments, in riots, in toils, in sleepless nights, in fastings;

⁶ by purity, by knowledge, by patience, by kindliness, by holiness of spirit, by unfeigned love;

⁷ by the message of truth, and by the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;

⁸ amid honour and disrepute, amid slander and praise; regarded as deceivers, yet proved to be true;

⁹ as unknown, yet well-known; as at death’s door, yet, see, we are living; as chastised, yet not killed;

¹⁰ as saddened, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet enriching many; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things!

The Apostle and his Converts

¹¹ We have been speaking freely to you, dear friends in Corinth; we have opened our heart;

¹² there is room there for you, yet there is not room, in your love, for us.

¹³ Can you not in return — I appeal to you as I should to children — open your hearts to us?

¹⁴ Do not enter into inconsistent relations with those who reject the faith. For what partnership can there be between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what has light to do with darkness?

¹⁵ What harmony can there be between Christ and Belial? Or what can those who accept the faith have in common with those who reject it?

¹⁶ What agreement can you be between a temple of God and idols? And we are a temple of the living God. That is what God meant when he said — ‘I will live among them, and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they will be my people.

¹⁷ Therefore “Come out from among the nations, and separate yourselves from them,” says the Lord, “And touch nothing impure; And I will welcome you;

¹⁸ and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,” says the Lord, the Ruler of all.’