Coming with Authority
THIS is the third time I am coming to you: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”
2 I told you before; and foretell you now (as if I were present), for the second time. And being absent now, I write to those which beforehand have sinned, and to all the rest: that, if I come again, I will not spare:
3 Since you seek proof of Christ speaking in me, which toward you is not weak, but is powerful in you.
4 ¶ For though He was crucified of weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live together with Him by the power of God amongst you.
5 Test yourselves, whether you be in the faith; test the genuineness of your ownselves. Do you not know your ownselves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be failed in testing?
6 But I trust that you know, that we are not failed in testing.
Meeting the Test
7 ¶ Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we should seem approved; but that you should do that which is good, even though we may seem as unapproved.
8 For we can do nothing against the truth, but only on behalf of the truth.
9 For we are glad, when we are weak, and you are strong; and this also we wish: your meeting of the test.
10 Because of this, I write these things being absent; lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the authority which the Lord has given me to building up, and not to tearing down.
Greetings and Benediction
11 ¶ Finally brothers, farewell. Be made complete, be encouraged, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
12 Greet one another with a holy kiss.
13 All the holy people greet you.
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.