⁹ And he said to me, My grace is enough for you, for my power is made complete in what is feeble. Most gladly, then, will I take pride in my feeble body, so that the power of Christ may be on me.

¹⁷ The offerings of God are a broken spirit; a broken and sorrowing heart, O God, you will not put from you.

³ Happy are the poor in spirit: for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

⁴ Happy are those who are sad: for they will be comforted.

⁵ Happy are the gentle: for the earth will be their heritage.

⁶ Happy are those whose heart's desire is for righteousness: for they will have their desire.

²⁶ My flesh and my heart are wasting away: but God is the Rock of my heart and my eternal heritage.

³ He makes the broken-hearted well, and puts oil on their wounds.

² For all these things my hand has made, and they are mine, says the Lord; but to this man only will I give attention, to him who is poor and broken in spirit, fearing my word.

¹⁵ For this is the word of him who is high and lifted up, whose resting-place is eternal, whose name is Holy: my resting-place is in the high and holy place, and with him who is crushed and poor in spirit, to give life to the spirit of the poor, and to make strong the heart of the crushed.

¹⁸ The Lord is near the broken-hearted; he is the saviour of those whose spirits are crushed down.

¹⁰ For the sorrow which God gives is the cause of salvation through a change of heart, in which there is no reason for grief: but the sorrow of the world is a cause of death.

¹¹ For you see what care was produced in you by this very sorrow of yours before God, what clearing of yourselves, what wrath against sin, what fear, what desire, what serious purpose, what punishment. In everything you have made it clear that you are free from sin in this business.

¹² So though I sent you a letter, it was not only because of the man who did the wrong, or because of him to whom the wrong was done, but so that your true care for us might be made clear in the eyes of God.

¹ The spirit of the Lord is on me, because I am marked out by him to give good news to the poor; he has sent me to make the broken-hearted well, to say that the prisoners will be made free, and that those in chains will see the light again;

² To give knowledge that the year of the Lord's good pleasure has come, and the day of punishment from our God; to give comfort to all who are sad;

³ To give them a fair head-dress in place of dust, the oil of joy in place of the clothing of grief, praise in place of sorrow; so that they may be named trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and so that he may have glory.

⁴ And they will be building again the old broken walls, and will make new the old waste places, and will put up again the towns which have been waste for long generations.