1I, Paul, and the other people working with me, are working together with God. We beg you to remember that God gave you his grace, so use it. Do not waste the grace of God. 2He said:
‘When the time was right,
I listened to your prayer.
Yes, when the day came
when I wanted to save you,
I helped you.’
You must know that now is the right time. Today is the day when God wants to save you. 3We do not want anyone to think bad things of us, so that no one will say bad things about the work that we do for God. 4You can believe that we are servants of God in everything that we do. We keep on working for God even when we suffer, when we are afraid and when we have problems, 5and also when people beat us, when we are in jail, when people give us problems, when we have to work hard, when we can not sleep and when we are hungry. 6We keep on doing this work because we are honest. We know how to live in the right way, because we are patient, because we want to be good to people, because the Holy_Spirit is with us and because we really love people. 7We keep on doing this work while we tell the truth about Jesus and while God helps us with his power. When we attack and defend ourselves, we use God's weapons of righteousness. We use them when we do what is right, and what God wants us to do. 8We keep on doing this work when people say good things about us and also when they say bad things. We keep on working when they think we are not important and also when they think we are very important. Some people say we tell lies, but we speak the truth. 9Some people do not want to believe that we are apostles, but some people do believe it. People do very bad things to us. We have almost died, but we are still_alive. People keep on punishing us, but they can not kill us. 10To other people it seems as if we are always crying, but we are happy. It seems as if we are poor, but we make many people rich when we tell them about God. It seems as if we have nothing, but we have everything.
11Dear Corinthians, we have spoken to you very honestly. Remember that we love you. 12We did not stop showing our love to you, but you stopped showing your love to us. 13I am talking to you like a father talks to his children. Open your hearts wide to us. Our hearts are open to you.
Do not make friends with people who do not believe
14Do not make friends with unbelievers. People who do what God wants and people who break God's laws must not be friends, because light and darkness can not be friends. 15Christ can not work together with Satan and a believer may not do the things that an unbeliever does. 16God's temple can not have anything to do with idols, and we are the temple of the God who lives. He said:
‘I will live with them and among them.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
17That is why you must go away from them.
You must have nothing to do with them,
say I, the Lord.
You must not touch anything that is impure,
and then I will accept you.
18I will be your Father,
and you will be my sons and daughters.
This is what the Lord
who rules over all says.’
