6:1 As co-workers we plead with you not to waste the favor you received from God.

6:2 He says, “At the right time I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” Look, now is the right time; now is the day of salvation!

6:3 We put no obstacles in front of anyone, so that that our service would not be blamed.

6:4 Instead, in everything we commend ourselves as servants of God: in endurance, in many pressures, in stress, in harrowing circumstances,

6:5 in beatings, in jails, in riots, in hard work, in sleeplessness, in fasting,

6:6 in purity, in knowledge, in great patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in a love that is not hypercritical,

6:7 in the word of truth, in the power of God, through the weapons of justice in both hands,

6:8 through honor and shame, through false rumors and good reports, through lies and truth,

6:9 as being misunderstood and well known, as dying and yet somehow living, as being disciplined and avoiding the death penalty,

6:10 as grieving and yet always happy, as poor yet enriching many, as having nothing yet having everything.

6:11 Corinthians, we have made ourselves vulnerable to you; we have opened our hearts wide.

6:12 If things are strained between us, it is only on your part.

6:13 I should only have to say this to children, but now you too must open up!

6:14 Do not allow yourselves to be harnessed together with unbelievers, for what do justice and lawlessness have in common? What partnership can there be between light and darkness?

6:15 Especially, to what agreement can the Anointed and Belial come? What?! What connection is there between a believer and an unbeliever?

6:16 And what could join the temple of God with that of idols? For we are the living temple of God, just as he said: “I will take up residence with them and walk among them; I will be their God and they will be my people.”

6:17 Therefore, “ ‘Come out from among them and be separate,’ says the Master, ‘and touch nothing unclean, and I will accept you.

6:18 I will be a father to you and you will be sons and daughters to me,’ says the Almighty Master.”