1 As a worker with him I beseech you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

2 For he said. In an acceptable time have I heard thee, And in the day of salvation have I succored thee. Behold, now is the acceptable time! behold, now is the day of salvation!

3 I am giving no one a cause of stumbling in order that my ministry may not be discredited;

4 but in every way I am striving to commend myself as Gods minister by stedfast endurance, by afflictions, by troubles, by distresses,

5 by floggings, by imprisonment; in riots, in labors, in sleepless watching, in hunger and thirst;

6 with purity, understanding, patience, and kindness; by the Holy Spirit, by love sincere,

7 by a true teaching and an energy divine; by the weapons of righteousness, for attack or for defense,

8 amid honor or dishonor, amid evil report and good report; as a deceiver and yet true;

9 as unknown and yet well known; as at deaths door, yet, strange to tell, I live on; as chastened, but not killed;

10 as grieved, but always glad; as poor, but making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

11 O Corinthians, I am unsealing my lips to you; my heart is wide open to you.

12 There is no narrowness in my love; but the narrowness is in your own.

13 I pray you, therefore, in fair exchange (I speak as to my children), let your hearts also be wide open to me.

14 Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? what communion has light with darkness?

15 What concord has Christ with Belial? What portion has a believer with an unbeliever?

16 And what compact has Gods temple with idols? For we are a temple of the living God, as he has said. I will dwell among them, and walk about among them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.

17 Therefore, Come out from among them and separate yourselves, saith the Lord, touch not what is unclean;

18 then I will receive you and will be to you a Father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.