Daily Text and Bible Reading: Saturday, December 7 [Press play below]

1.1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will, and Timothy our brother, to the congregation of God that is in Corinth, including all the holy ones who are in all Achaia:
1.2 May you have undeserved kindness and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1.3 Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of tender mercies and the God of all comfort,
1.4 who comforts us in all our trials so that we may be able to comfort others in any sort of trial with the comfort that we receive from God.
1.5 For just as the sufferings for the Christ abound in us, so the comfort we receive through the Christ also abounds.
1.6 Now if we face trials, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are being comforted, it is for your comfort, which acts to help you to endure the same sufferings that we also suffer.
1.7 And our hope for you is unwavering, knowing as we do that just as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort.
1.8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the tribulation we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under extreme pressure beyond our own strength, so that we were very uncertain even of our lives.
1.9 In fact, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. This was so that we would trust, not in ourselves, but in the God who raises up the dead.
1.10 From such a great risk of death he did rescue us and will rescue us, and our hope is in him that he will also continue to rescue us.
1.11 You also can help us by your supplication for us, in order that many may give thanks in our behalf for the favor we receive in answer to the prayers of many.
1.12 For the thing we boast of is this, our conscience bears witness that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with holiness and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but with God’s undeserved kindness.
1.13 For we are really not writing you about anything except what you can read and understand, and I hope you will continue to understand these things fully,
1.14 just as you have also understood to an extent that we are a cause for you to boast, just as you will also be for us in the day of our Lord Jesus.
1.15 So with this confidence, I was intending to come first to you, so that you might have a second occasion for joy;
1.16 for I intended to visit you on my way to Macedonia, to return to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me off to Judea.
1.17 Well, when I had such an intention, I did not view the matter lightly, did I? Or do I purpose things in a fleshly way, so that I am saying “Yes, yes” and then “No, no”?
1.18 But God can be relied on that what we say to you is not “yes” and yet “no.”
1.19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you through us, that is, through me and Silvanus and Timothy, did not become “yes” and yet “no,” but “yes” has become “yes” in his case.
1.20 For no matter how many the promises of God are, they have become “yes” by means of him. Therefore, also through him is the “Amen” said to God, which brings him glory through us.
1.21 But the one who guarantees that you and we belong to Christ and the one who anointed us is God.
1.22 He has also put his seal on us and has given us the token of what is to come, that is, the spirit, in our hearts.
1.23 Now I call on God as a witness against me that it is to spare you that I have not yet come to Corinth.
1.24 Not that we are the masters over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy, for it is by your faith that you are standing.
2.1 For I have made up my mind not to come to you again in sadness.
2.2 For if I make you sad, who will be there to cheer me up except the one I saddened?
2.3 I wrote what I did, so that when I come I may not be saddened by those over whom I ought to rejoice, because I have confidence that what brings me joy brings all of you the same joy.
2.4 For out of much tribulation and anguish of heart I wrote you with many tears, not to sadden you, but to let you know the depth of love I have for you.
2.5 Now if anyone has caused sadness, he has saddened, not me, but all of you to an extent—not to be too harsh in what I say.
2.6 This rebuke given by the majority is sufficient for such a man;
2.7 now you should instead kindly forgive and comfort him, so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sadness.
2.8 I therefore exhort you to confirm your love for him.
2.9 For this is also why I wrote to you: to determine whether you would give proof of your obedience in all things.
2.10 If you forgive anyone for anything, I do also. In fact, whatever I have forgiven (if I have forgiven anything) has been for your sake in Christ’s sight,
2.11 so that we may not be overreached by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs.
2.12 Now when I arrived in Troas to declare the good news about the Christ and a door was opened to me in the Lord,
2.13 my spirit felt no relief because of not finding Titus my brother. So I said good-bye to them and departed for Macedonia.
2.14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in a triumphal procession in company with the Christ and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him in every place!
2.15 For to God we are a sweet fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;
2.16 to the latter ones an odor of death leading to death, to the former ones a fragrance of life leading to life. And who is adequately qualified for these things?
2.17 We are, for we are not peddlers of the word of God as many men are, but we speak in all sincerity as sent from God, yes, in the sight of God and in company with Christ.
3.1 Are we starting to recommend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some men, letters of recommendation to you or from you?
3.2 You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts and known and being read by all mankind.
3.3 For you are shown to be a letter of Christ written by us as ministers, inscribed not with ink but with the spirit of a living God, not on stone tablets but on fleshly tablets, on hearts.
3.4 We have this sort of confidence toward God through the Christ.
3.5 Not that we of ourselves are adequately qualified to consider that anything comes from us, but our being adequately qualified comes from God,
3.6 who has indeed adequately qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant, not of a written code, but of spirit; for the written code condemns to death, but the spirit makes alive.
3.7 Now if the code that administers death and that was engraved in letters on stones came with such glory that the sons of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, a glory that was to be done away with,
3.8 why should the administering of the spirit not be with even greater glory?
3.9 For if the code administering condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious would be the administering of righteousness!
3.10 In fact, even what had once been made glorious has been stripped of glory because of the glory that excels it.
3.11 For if what was to be done away with was brought in with glory, how much greater would be the glory of what remains!
3.12 Since we have such a hope, we are using great freeness of speech,
3.13 and not doing what Moses did when he would put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel might not gaze intently at the end of what was to be done away with.
3.14 But their minds were dulled. For to this present day, the same veil remains unlifted when the old covenant is read, because it is taken away only by means of Christ.
3.15 In fact, to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their hearts.
3.16 But when one turns to Jehovah, the veil is taken away.
3.17 Now Jehovah is the Spirit, and where the spirit of Jehovah is, there is freedom.
3.18 And all of us, while we with unveiled faces reflect like mirrors the glory of Jehovah, are transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, exactly as it is done by Jehovah the Spirit.
4.1 Therefore, since we have this ministry through the mercy that was shown us, we do not give up.
4.2 But we have renounced the shameful, underhanded things, not walking with cunning or adulterating the word of God; but by making the truth manifest, we recommend ourselves to every human conscience in the sight of God.
4.3 If, in fact, the good news we declare is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing,
4.4 among whom the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.
4.5 For we are preaching, not about ourselves, but about Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.
4.6 For God is the one who said: “Let the light shine out of darkness,” and he has shone on our hearts to illuminate them with the glorious knowledge of God by the face of Christ.
4.7 However, we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the power beyond what is normal may be God’s and not from us.
4.8 We are hard-pressed in every way, but not cramped beyond movement; we are perplexed, but not absolutely with no way out;
4.9 we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed.
4.10 Always we endure in our body the death-dealing treatment that Jesus suffered, that the life of Jesus may also be made manifest in our body.
4.11 For we who live are ever being brought face-to-face with death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
4.12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.
4.13 Now because we have the same spirit of faith as that of which it is written: “I exercised faith, therefore I spoke”; we too exercise faith and therefore we speak,
4.14 knowing that the One who raised Jesus up will raise us up also with Jesus and will present us together with you.
4.15 For all these things are for your sake, so that the increase of the undeserved kindness should abound even more because many more are offering thanksgiving to the glory of God.
4.16 Therefore, we do not give up, but even if the man we are outside is wasting away, certainly the man we are inside is being renewed from day to day.
4.17 For though the tribulation is momentary and light, it works out for us a glory that is of more and more surpassing greatness and is everlasting;
4.18 while we keep our eyes, not on the things seen, but on the things unseen. For the things seen are temporary, but the things unseen are everlasting.
5.1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, should be torn down, we are to have a building from God, a house not made with hands, everlasting in the heavens.
5.2 For in this house we do indeed groan, earnestly desiring to put on the one for us from heaven,
5.3 so that when we do put it on, we will not be found naked.
5.4 In fact, we who are in this tent groan, being weighed down, because we do not want to put this one off, but we want to put the other on, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
5.5 Now the one who prepared us for this very thing is God, who gave us the spirit as a token of what is to come.
5.6 So we are always of good courage and know that while we have our home in the body, we are absent from the Lord,
5.7 for we are walking by faith, not by sight.
5.8 But we are of good courage and would prefer to be absent from the body and to make our home with the Lord.
5.9 So whether at home with him or absent from him, we make it our aim to be acceptable to him.
5.10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of the Christ, so that each one may be repaid according to the things he has practiced while in the body, whether good or bad.
5.11 Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we keep persuading men, but we are well-known to God. However, I hope that we are well-known also to your consciences.
5.12 We are not recommending ourselves to you again but giving you an incentive to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast over the outward appearance but not over what is in the heart.
5.13 For if we were out of our mind, it was for God; if we are sound in mind, it is for you.
5.14 For the love the Christ has compels us, because this is what we have concluded, that one man died for all; so, then, all had died.
5.15 And he died for all so that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised up.
5.16 So from now on we know no man from a fleshly viewpoint. Even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, we certainly no longer know him in that way.
5.17 Therefore, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; look! new things have come into existence.
5.18 But all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of the reconciliation,
5.19 namely, that God was by means of Christ reconciling a world to himself, not counting their offenses against them, and he entrusted to us the message of the reconciliation.
5.20 Therefore, we are ambassadors substituting for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. As substitutes for Christ, we beg: “Become reconciled to God.”
5.21 The one who did not know sin, he made to be sin for us, so that by means of him we might become God’s righteousness.
6.1 Working together with him, we also urge you not to accept the undeserved kindness of God and miss its purpose.
6.2 For he says: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you.” Look! Now is the especially acceptable time. Look! Now is the day of salvation.
6.3 In no way are we giving any cause for stumbling, so that no fault may be found with our ministry;
6.4 but in every way we recommend ourselves as God’s ministers, by the endurance of much, by tribulations, by times of need, by difficulties,
6.5 by beatings, by imprisonments, by riots, by hard work, by sleepless nights, by times without food;
6.6 by purity, by knowledge, by patience, by kindness, by holy spirit, by love free from hypocrisy,
6.7 by truthful speech, by God’s power; through the weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left,
6.8 through glory and dishonor, through bad report and good report. We are regarded as deceivers and yet we are truthful,
6.9 as unknown and yet we are recognized, as dying and yet look! we live, as punished and yet not handed over to death,
6.10 as sorrowing but ever rejoicing, as poor but making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things.
6.11 We have opened our mouth to speak to you, Corinthians, and we have opened wide our heart.
6.12 We are not restricted in our affections for you, but you are restricted in your own tender affections for us.
6.13 So in response—I speak as to my children—you too open your hearts wide.
6.14 Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what fellowship do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what sharing does light have with darkness?
6.15 Further, what harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer share in common with an unbeliever?
6.16 And what agreement does God’s temple have with idols? For we are a temple of a living God; just as God said: “I will reside among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
6.17 “‘Therefore, get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing’”; “‘and I will take you in.’”
6.18 “‘And I will become a father to you, and you will become sons and daughters to me,’ says Jehovah, the Almighty.”