2 Corinthians 1:23

2 Corinthians 1:23. But I call God for a witness upon my soul, that to spare you (and for that reason only) I forbare to come unto Corinth. Little would they expect such an explanation, and evidently he would fain have concealed it from them; but since he must be plain with them, with such suspicions attaching to him, he uses the most solemn of all asseverations in doing it, and the “I” is emphatic: ‘Let enemies say what they will, I protest it before God.' In his First Epistle (1 Corinthians 4:21) he had asked them to say whether he was to come to them with a rod (on the one hand), or (what he earnestly wished) in love and a spirit of meekness; and finding that they were not ripe for the latter way, rather than come to them at all on his way to Macedonia (as intended), he simply reserved his visit till after his return: that was his whole case.