3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement,
4 who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.
5 For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.
6 If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
7 Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement.
8 We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction that came to us in the province of Asia; we were utterly weighed down beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.
9 Indeed, we had accepted within ourselves the sentence of death, that we might trust not in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.