5Any injury that has been done, has not been done to me; to some extent, not to labour the point, it has been done to you all. 6The penalty on which the general meeting has agreed has met the offence well enough. 7Something very different is called for now: you must forgive the offender and put heart into him; the man's sorrow must not be made so severe as to overwhelm him. 8I urge you therefore to assure him of your love for him by a formal act. 9I wrote, I may say, to see how you stood the test, whether you fully accepted my authority. 10But anyone who has your forgiveness has mine too; and when I speak of forgiving (so far as there is anything for me to forgive), I mean that as the representative of Christ I have forgiven him for your sake. 11For Satan must not be allowed to get the better of us; we know his wiles all too well.
12Then when I came to Troas, where I was to preach the gospel of Christ, and where an opening awaited me for the Lord's work, 13I still found no relief of mind, for my colleague Titus was not there to meet me; so I took leave of the people there and went off to Macedonia. 14But thanks be to God, who continually leads us about, captives in Christ's triumphal procession, and everywhere uses us to reveal and spread abroad the fragrance of the knowledge of himself! 15We are indeed the incense offered by Christ to God, both for those who are on the way to salvation, and for those who are on the way to perdition: 16to the latter it is a deadly fume that kills, to the former a vital fragrance that brings life. Who is equal to such a calling? 17At least we do not go hawking the word of God about, as so many do; when we declare the word we do it in sincerity, as from God and in God's sight, as members of Christ.
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