Perfecting holiness
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📚✭Therefore, since we have these promises, dearly loved ones, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God✭.Paul’s love for them, their repentance
2 📚✭Welcome us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have cheated no one. 3 📚I do not speak this to condemn you; for I have said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. 4 📚Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is the pride I take in you. I am filled with encouragement, I am exceedingly joyful✭ in all our trouble.
5 📚✭For when we had come to Macedonia, our body had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Outside were conflicts, inside were fears. 6 📚✭But God, who encourages those who are cast down, encouraged us by the coming of Titus, 7 📚and not by his coming only, but by the encouragement which he received with you. When he told us of your earnest longing, your mourning, and your zeal regarding me, I rejoiced even more.
8 📚✭For though I made you sad with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it, seeing that the same letter made you sad, but only for a little while. 9 📚✭Now I rejoice, not that you were made sad, but because your sorrow resulted in repentance. For you were made sad in a godly way, that you might not be injured by us in anything. 10 📚For godly✭ sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation about which there will be no regrets. But the sorrow of the world produces death. 11 📚✭For observe this very thing: You grieved in a godly way. What earnestness it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what demands for justice! In everything you have shown yourselves to be clear in this matter.
12 📚✭Therefore, though I wrote to you, I did not do it on account of the one who had done the wrong, or on account of the one who suffered the wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you.
Titus and the Corinthian Christians
13 📚✭Therefore, we were encouraged by your encouragement. And we rejoiced far more because of the joy of Titus, for his spirit was refreshed by all of you. 14 📚For if in anything I boasted to him about you, I am not ashamed. But just as everything we spoke to you was truth, even so the boast I made to Titus is found to be true. 15 📚And his deep affection for you is more abundant when he remembers the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling you received him. 16 📚Therefore I rejoice that I have confidence in you in everything.