2 Corinthians 7

₁Dear friends, God has promised us these things. That is why we must not sin and make our bodies and spirits impure. We must try to live holy lives as God wants because we respect Him.

₂Please open your hearts to us and show us your love. We have not done any wrong to anyone, and we have not hurt or cheated anyone. ₃I do not say these things because I think that you have done something wrong. I have told you before that we think of you all the time. We will never forget you, no_matter what happens. ₄I speak openly to you, and I am very proud of you. You encourage me a lot. I am still very glad every time that we suffer.

₅When we were in the province of Macedonia, we had no time to rest. People made us suffer in many ways. They were always fighting with us and we were afraid. ₆But God comforts people who suffer and who do not know how to help themselves. He comforted us when Titus came to us. ₇God comforted us, not only because Titus came to us, but also because you comforted Titus. Titus told us how much you want to see me and that you are sorry about the problems between us and that you want to help. I am very happy about this.

₈Maybe I made you sad in my letter, but I am not sorry about that. No, I was sad because I saw that my letter had made you sad for a short while. ₉Now I am happy that I sent you that letter, not because it made you sad, but because it has made you change and made you start living as God wants you to live. That is the sadness that God wants. We did not do something wrong to you or hurt you. ₁₀When someone is sad as God wants him to be sad, it changes him and then God saves him. We will never feel sorry for that kind of sadness. But if someone is sad like the people of this world get sad, it changes nothing and that person will stay spiritually_dead.

₁₁Look at what God did when you were sad the way He wants you to be sad. You saw the things that happened that were wrong and you said that you were not against me. You became angry with the person who wanted you to be against me. You were afraid that the problem was too big to go away. You started to long for me and you made everything right between us. You punished the man who was against me. Yes, you proved that you were innocent in this. ₁₂Why do you think I wrote this letter? Do you think I wrote it because of the man who did wrong or because I was hurt? No, I wrote it so that you could see how important it is that everything must be right between you and us, and that God can see it. ₁₃That is why I am happy. We are happy, but not only about ourselves. We are even more happy because Titus is so happy. All of you have helped him feel better and stronger. ₁₄I have boasted to Titus about you and I am not sorry about it because everything we told Titus about you was the truth, and so we told the truth when we boasted to Titus about you. ₁₅Titus remembers that you all listened to him and that you respected him a lot when he came to you. So now he loves you even more. ₁₆I am happy because now I know that I can trust you.