For I fear, that, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would like, and that I shall be found by you such as you would not like: lest there be debates, envying, wrath, strife, backbiting, whispering, pride, tumults:
Therefore I write these things being absent, so that being present I need not use severity, according to the authority which the Lord has given me for edification, and not for destruction.
Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith; carefully consider your own selves. Do you not know your own selves, how Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are lost?
Now I pray to God that you will do no evil; not that we should appear to be approved, but that you should do that which is honest, though we may seem to be lost.