(Acts 18:1–11; 1 Corinthians 1:1–3)
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Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, and Timotheus the brother, to the Assembly of God that is in Corinth, with all the holy ones who are in all Achaia:
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
The God of All Comfort
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Blessed [is] God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort,
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who is comforting us in all our tribulation, for our being able to comfort those in any tribulation through the comfort with which we are comforted ourselves by God;
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because, as the sufferings of the Christ abound to us, so through the Christ our comfort also abounds;
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and whether we be in tribulation, [it is] for your comfort and salvation, that is worked in the enduring of the same sufferings that we also suffer; whether we are comforted, [it is] for your comfort and salvation;
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and our hope [is] steadfast for you, knowing that even as you are partakers of the sufferings—so also of the comfort.
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For we do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, of our tribulation that happened to us in Asia, that we were exceedingly burdened above [our] power, so that we even despaired of life;
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but we ourselves have had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we may not be trusting on ourselves, but on God, who is raising the dead,
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who delivered us out of so great a death, and delivers, in whom we have hoped that even yet He will deliver;
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you also working together for us by your supplication, that the gift through many persons to us, through many, may be thankfully acknowledged for us.
Paul’s Change of Plans
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For our glorying is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you;
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for no other things do we write to you, but what you either read or also acknowledge, and I hope that you will also acknowledge to the end,
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according as you also acknowledged us in part, that we are your glory, even as also you [are] ours, in the Day of the Lord Jesus;
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and in this confidence I was intending to come to you before, that you might have a second favor,
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and to pass to Macedonia through you, and to come to you again from Macedonia, and to be sent forward by you to Judea.
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This, therefore, intending, did I then use the lightness; or the things that I counsel, [did] I counsel according to the flesh, that it may be with me Yes, yes, and No, no?
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And God [is] faithful, that our word to you did not become Yes and No,
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for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, having been preached through us among you—through me and Silvanus and Timotheus—did not become Yes and No, but in Him it has become Yes;
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for as many as [are] promises of God, in Him [are] the Yes, and in Him the Amen, for glory to God through us;
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and He who is confirming you with us into Christ, and anointed us, [is] God,
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who also sealed us, and gave the deposit of the Spirit in our hearts.
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And I call on God for a witness on my soul, that sparing you, I did not come to Corinth yet;
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not that we are lords over your faith, but we are workers together with your joy, for by faith you stand.
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