2 Corinthians 1

³ Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He is the Father who shows deep mercy. He is the God who brings comfort when we hurt!

⁸ Brothers, we need you to know about the pain that hit us in Asia. The weight was so heavy. It was far more than we could carry. We thought we were done. We thought we would die.

¹² We can say this with a clean heart. We have lived with real honesty from God everywhere we went. We did not use clever human tricks. We walked by God's grace. Even more with you.

¹⁵ I trusted this. So I made a plan to visit you first. I wanted to give you a second gift.

²³ I call God as my witness. I stayed away from Corinth to spare you.