To Macedonia and Achaia

¹After the uproar died down, Paul called together the believers and with words of encouragement said good-bye to them. Then he left and went on to Macedonia.

²He went through those regions and encouraged the people with many messages. Then he came to Achaia,

³where he stayed three months. He was getting ready to go to Syria when he discovered that there were Jews plotting against him; so he decided to go back through Macedonia.

⁴Sopater son of Pyrrhus, from Berea, went with him; so did Aristarchus and Secundus, from Thessalonica; Gaius, from Derbe; Tychicus and Trophimus, from the province of Asia; and Timothy.

⁵They went ahead and waited for us in Troas.

⁶We sailed from Philippi after the Festival of Unleavened Bread, and five days later we joined them in Troas, where we spent a week.

Paul's Last Visit to Troas

⁷On Saturday evening we gathered together for the fellowship meal. Paul spoke to the people and kept on speaking until midnight, since he was going to leave the next day.

⁸Many lamps were burning in the upstairs room where we were meeting.

⁹A young man named Eutychus was sitting in the window, and as Paul kept on talking, Eutychus got sleepier and sleepier, until he finally went sound asleep and fell from the third story to the ground. When they picked him up, he was dead.

¹⁰But Paul went down and threw himself on him and hugged him. “Don't worry,” he said, “he is still alive!”

¹¹Then he went back upstairs, broke bread, and ate. After talking with them for a long time, even until sunrise, Paul left.

¹²They took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.

From Troas to Miletus

¹³We went on ahead to the ship and sailed off to Assos, where we were going to take Paul aboard. He had told us to do this, because he was going there by land.

¹⁴When he met us in Assos, we took him aboard and went on to Mitylene.

¹⁵We sailed from there and arrived off Chios the next day. A day later we came to Samos, and the following day we reached Miletus.

¹⁶Paul had decided to sail on by Ephesus, so as not to lose any time in the province of Asia. He was in a hurry to arrive in Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost, if at all possible.

Paul's Farewell Speech to the Elders of Ephesus

¹⁷From Miletus Paul sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him.

¹⁸When they arrived, he said to them, “You know how I spent the whole time I was with you, from the first day I arrived in the province of Asia.

¹⁹With all humility and many tears I did my work as the Lord's servant during the hard times that came to me because of the plots of some Jews.

²⁰You know that I did not hold back anything that would be of help to you as I preached and taught in public and in your homes.

²¹To Jews and Gentiles alike I gave solemn warning that they should turn from their sins to God and believe in our Lord Jesus.

²²And now, in obedience to the Holy Spirit I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.

²³I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit has warned me that prison and troubles wait for me.

²⁴But I reckon my own life to be worth nothing to me; I only want to complete my mission and finish the work that the Lord Jesus gave me to do, which is to declare the Good News about the grace of God.

²⁵“I have gone about among all of you, preaching the Kingdom of God. And now I know that none of you will ever see me again.

²⁶So I solemnly declare to you this very day: if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible.

²⁷For I have not held back from announcing to you the whole purpose of God.

²⁸So keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock which the Holy Spirit has placed in your care. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he made his own through the blood of his Son.

²⁹I know that after I leave, fierce wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock.

³⁰The time will come when some men from your own group will tell lies to lead the believers away after them.

³¹Watch, then, and remember that with many tears, day and night, I taught every one of you for three years.

³²“And now I commend you to the care of God and to the message of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the blessings God has for all his people.

³³I have not wanted anyone's silver or gold or clothing.

³⁴You yourselves know that I have worked with these hands of mine to provide everything that my companions and I have needed.

³⁵I have shown you in all things that by working hard in this way we must help the weak, remembering the words that the Lord Jesus himself said, ‘There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.’”

³⁶When Paul finished, he knelt down with them and prayed.

³⁷They were all crying as they hugged him and kissed him good-bye.

³⁸They were especially sad because he had said that they would never see him again. And so they went with him to the ship.

Servants of the New Covenant

¹Does this sound as if we were again boasting about ourselves? Could it be that, like some other people, we need letters of recommendation to you or from you?

²You yourselves are the letter we have, written on our hearts for everyone to know and read.

³It is clear that Christ himself wrote this letter and sent it by us. It is written, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, and not on stone tablets but on human hearts.

⁴We say this because we have confidence in God through Christ.

⁵There is nothing in us that allows us to claim that we are capable of doing this work. The capacity we have comes from God;

⁶it is he who made us capable of serving the new covenant, which consists not of a written law but of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷The Law was carved in letters on stone tablets, and God's glory appeared when it was given. Even though the brightness on Moses' face was fading, it was so strong that the people of Israel could not keep their eyes fixed on him. If the Law, which brings death when it is in force, came with such glory,

⁸how much greater is the glory that belongs to the activity of the Spirit!

⁹The system which brings condemnation was glorious; how much more glorious is the activity which brings salvation!

¹⁰We may say that because of the far brighter glory now the glory that was so bright in the past is gone.

¹¹For if there was glory in that which lasted for a while, how much more glory is there in that which lasts forever!

¹²Because we have this hope, we are very bold.

¹³We are not like Moses, who had to put a veil over his face so that the people of Israel would not see the brightness fade and disappear.

¹⁴Their minds, indeed, were closed; and to this very day their minds are covered with the same veil as they read the books of the old covenant. The veil is removed only when a person is joined to Christ.

¹⁵Even today, whenever they read the Law of Moses, the veil still covers their minds.

¹⁶But it can be removed, as the scripture says about Moses: “His veil was removed when he turned to the Lord.”

¹⁷Now, “the Lord” in this passage is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom.

¹⁸All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory.

Spiritual Treasure in Clay Pots

¹God in his mercy has given us this work to do, and so we do not become discouraged.

²We put aside all secret and shameful deeds; we do not act with deceit, nor do we falsify the word of God. In the full light of truth we live in God's sight and try to commend ourselves to everyone's good conscience.

³For if the gospel we preach is hidden, it is hidden only from those who are being lost.

⁴They do not believe, because their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world. He keeps them from seeing the light shining on them, the light that comes from the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

⁵For it is not ourselves that we preach; we preach Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

⁶The God who said, “Out of darkness the light shall shine!” is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts, to bring us the knowledge of God's glory shining in the face of Christ.

⁷Yet we who have this spiritual treasure are like common clay pots, in order to show that the supreme power belongs to God, not to us.

⁸We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair;

⁹there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed.

¹⁰At all times we carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.

¹¹Throughout our lives we are always in danger of death for Jesus' sake, in order that his life may be seen in this mortal body of ours.

¹²This means that death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

¹³The scripture says, “I spoke because I believed.” In the same spirit of faith we also speak because we believe.

¹⁴We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus to life, will also raise us up with Jesus and take us, together with you, into his presence.

¹⁵All this is for your sake; and as God's grace reaches more and more people, they will offer to the glory of God more prayers of thanksgiving.

Living by Faith

¹⁶For this reason we never become discouraged. Even though our physical being is gradually decaying, yet our spiritual being is renewed day after day.

¹⁷And this small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble.

¹⁸For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever.

¹For we know that when this tent we live in—our body here on earth—is torn down, God will have a house in heaven for us to live in, a home he himself has made, which will last forever.

²And now we sigh, so great is our desire that our home which comes from heaven should be put on over us;

³by being clothed with it we shall not be without a body.

⁴While we live in this earthly tent, we groan with a feeling of oppression; it is not that we want to get rid of our earthly body, but that we want to have the heavenly one put on over us, so that what is mortal will be transformed by life.

⁵God is the one who has prepared us for this change, and he gave us his Spirit as the guarantee of all that he has in store for us.

⁶So we are always full of courage. We know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord's home.

⁷For our life is a matter of faith, not of sight.

⁸We are full of courage and would much prefer to leave our home in the body and be at home with the Lord.

⁹More than anything else, however, we want to please him, whether in our home here or there.

¹⁰For all of us must appear before Christ, to be judged by him. We will each receive what we deserve, according to everything we have done, good or bad, in our bodily life.

Friendship with God through Christ

¹¹We know what it means to fear the Lord, and so we try to persuade others. God knows us completely, and I hope that in your hearts you know me as well.

¹²We are not trying again to recommend ourselves to you; rather, we are trying to give you a good reason to be proud of us, so that you will be able to answer those who boast about people's appearance and not about their character.

¹³Are we really insane? It is for God's sake. Or are we sane? Then it is for your sake.

¹⁴We are ruled by the love of Christ, now that we recognize that one man died for everyone, which means that they all share in his death.

¹⁵He died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but only for him who died and was raised to life for their sake.

¹⁶No longer, then, do we judge anyone by human standards. Even if at one time we judged Christ according to human standards, we no longer do so.

¹⁷Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come.

¹⁸All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.

¹⁹Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.

²⁰Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends!

²¹Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God.

²⁵Selfishness only causes trouble. You are much better off to trust the Lord.

²⁶It is foolish to follow your own opinions. Be safe, and follow the teachings of wiser people.

²⁷Give to the poor and you will never be in need. If you close your eyes to the poor, many people will curse you.

²⁸People stay in hiding when the wicked come to power. But when they fall from power, the righteous will rule again.