And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
So when they were dismissed, they came to Antioch: and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle:
As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.
And he wrote a letter after this manner:
Who, when they came to Caesarea, and delivered the epistle to the governor, presented Paul also before him.
And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.
I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem.
I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season.
That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.
For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.
Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.
This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.
The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write.
I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.