Paul Greets the Corinthians
(1 Corinthians 1:1-3)

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God being in Corinth, with all the saints being in all Achaia.

2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The God of All Comfort

3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions, and God of all comfort, 4the One comforting us in all our tribulation, for us to be able to comfort those in every tribulation through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God, 5because as the sufferings of the Christ abound toward us, so through Christ our comfort also abounds.

6But if we are constricted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your comfort, operating in the endurance of the same sufferings that we also suffer. 7And our hope for you is sure, knowing that as you are partners of our sufferings, so also of our comfort.

8For we do not want you to be ignorant brothers, as to our affliction having happened in Asia, that we were weighed against excessively, beyond our power, so as for us to despair even to live. 9Indeed we had in ourselves the sentence of death, in order that we should not be trusting in ourselves, but in God, the One raising the dead, 10who has delivered us from such a great death and will deliver us, in whom we have hope that also He will deliver us still, 11of you also joining together for us by supplication, so that thanks may be given for us by many persons for the grace bestowed toward us through many.

Paul's Change of Plans

12For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you, in the purity and sincerity of God, and not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God. 13For we write no other things to you other than what you read or even understand. And I hope that you will understand to the end, 14as also you have understood us in part, so that we are your boasting, even as you are also ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

15And with this confidence I was planning to come to you previously, so that you might have a second blessing of grace, 16and through you to pass through into Macedonia, and to come to you again from Macedonia, and to be set forward by you to Judea.

17Thus purposing, therefore then, did I use lightness? Or do I purpose what I purpose according to flesh, so that with me there should be “Yes, yes” and “No, no”? 18But God is faithful, that our word to you was not “Yes” and “No.” 19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, having been proclaimed among you by us—by me and Silvanusa and Timothy—was not “Yes” and “No,” but it has always been “Yes” in Him. 20For as many as are the promises of God, in Him is the “Yes.” Therefore also in Him, the “Amen” by us is for glory to God.

21Now the One establishing us with you unto Christ, and having anointed us, is God, 22the One also having sealed us and having given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts. 23But I call God as witness upon my soul, that sparing you, I have not yet come to Corinth. 24Not that we lord it over your faith, but are fellow workers with you of joy; for in the faith you stand firm.