³ I say it not to condemn `you': for I have said before, that ye are in our hearts to die together and live together.

¹¹ Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.

¹² Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own affections.

⁸ even so, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were become very dear to us.

⁸ For God is my witness, how I long after you all in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus.

⁹ And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment;

¹⁰ For this cause I write these things while absent, that I may not when present deal sharply, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for casting down.

¹⁵ And I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?

¹¹ Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth.

¹² So although I wrote unto you, I `wrote' not for his cause that did the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered the wrong, but that your earnest care for us might be made manifest unto you in the sight of God.

² Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men;

⁴ For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be made sorry, but that ye might know the love that I have more abundantly unto you.

⁵ But if any hath caused sorrow, he hath caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I press not too heavily) to you all.

¹⁴ I write not these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

¹⁵ For though ye have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet `have ye' not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel.

¹⁶ And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God;

¹⁷ where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: Jehovah do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.