2 Corinthians 12:15

15 So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?

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2 Corinthians 12:15 in Other Translations

King James Version (KJV)
15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.
English Standard Version (ESV)
15 I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?
New Living Translation (NLT)
15 I will gladly spend myself and all I have for you, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me.
The Message Bible (MSG)
15 I'd be most happy to empty my pockets, even mortgage my life, for your good. So how does it happen that the more I love you, the less I'm loved?
American Standard Version (ASV)
15 And I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less?
GOD'S WORD Translation (GW)
15 I will be very glad to spend whatever I have. I'll even give myself for you. Do you love me less because I love you so much?
Holman Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
15 I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?
New International Reader's Version (NIRV)
15 So I will be very happy to spend everything I have for you. I will even spend myself. If I love you more, will you love me less?

2 Corinthians 12:15 Meaning and Commentary

2 Corinthians 12:15

And I will gladly spend
Meaning all his time, talents, and strength, which God had bestowed upon him for their spiritual profit and advantage; yea, all that small pittance of worldly goods that he enjoyed: he not only determined to take nothing from them, but was willing to communicate his little substance to them, or spend it in their service; and not only so, but be spent for them:

and be spent for you,
or "for your souls": for the good of them; his sense is, either that he was willing to have his whole substance expended, if it would be of any use to them; or his whole strength exhausted, in laborious preaching to them; or even his life to be laid down for them, was it necessary; which sense is favoured by the Syriac and Arabic versions; all which expressed his tender affection as a spiritual father for them: adding,

though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved;
though he loved them more than he did other churches, or than the false apostles loved them, and yet were loved by them less than he was by other churches; or by them, than the false apostles were; or rather the meaning is, that though he increased in his love, and in the expressions of it to them, and they grew colder and more indifferent to him, yet this should not hinder his warmest desires and most earnest endeavours after their spiritual and eternal welfare. This way of speaking strongly expresses his love to them, and tacitly implies the lukewarmness of theirs to him; and yet that it should be no discouragement to him to proceed in doing them all the service he was capable of.

2 Corinthians 12:15 In-Context

13 How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!
14 Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.
15 So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?
16 Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you. Yet, crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery!
17 Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent to you?

Cross References 2

  • 1. Philippians 2:17; 1 Thessalonians 2:8
  • 2. 2 Corinthians 11:11
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