Verse 3. I speak not this to condemn you. I do not speak this with any desire to reproach you. I do not complain of you for the purpose of condemning, or because I have a desire to find fault, though I am competed to speak, in some respect of your want of affection and liberality towards me. It is not because I have no love for you, and wish to have occasion to use words implying complaint and condemnation.

For I have said before.2 Co 7:11,12.

That ye are in our hearts. That is, we are so much attached to you; or you have such a place in our affections.

To die and live with you. If it were the will of God, we would be glad to spend our lives among you, and to die with you: an expression denoting most tender attachment. A similar well-known expression occurs in Horace:

Tecum vivere amem, teeurn obeam l ibens.

Odes, B. III. IX.24

With the world I live, with the world I die.

This was an expression of the tenderest attachment. It was true that the Corinthians had not shown themselves remarkably worthy of the affections of Paul, but from the beginning he had felt towards them the tenderest attachment. And if it had been the will of God that he should cease to travel, and to expose himself to perils by sea and land to spread the knowledge of the Saviour, he would gladly have confined his labours to them, and there have ended his days.

{b} "said before" 2 Co 6:11,12