007:004 I have great confidence in you: very loudly do I boast of you.
I am filled with comfort: my heart overflows with joy amid
all our affliction.
007:005 For even after our arrival in Macedonia we could get no relief
such as human nature craves. We were greatly harassed;
there were conflicts without and fears within.
007:006 But He who comforts the depressed--even God--comforted us
by the coming of Titus, and not by his coming only,
007:007 but also by the fact that he had felt comforted on your account,
and by the report which he brought of your eager affection,
of your grief, and of your jealousy on my behalf, so that I
rejoiced more than ever.
007:008 For if I gave you pain by that letter, I do not regret it,
though I did regret it then. I see that that letter,
even though for a time it gave you pain, had a salutary effect.
007:009 Now I rejoice, not in your grief, but because the grief
led to repentance; for you sorrowed with a godly sorrow,
which prevented you from receiving injury from us in any respect.
007:010 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation,
a repentance not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world
finally produces death.
007:011 For mark the effects of this very thing--your having sorrowed
with a godly sorrow--what earnestness it has called forth in you,
what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm,
what longing affection, what jealousy, what meting out of justice!
You have completely wiped away reproach from yourselves
in the matter.
007:012 Therefore, though I wrote to you, it was not to punish the offender,
nor to secure justice for him who had suffered the wrong,
but it was chiefly in order that your earnest feeling on our