2 Corinthians 13

2 Cor. 13:1. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." These words seem to be quoted from the law of our Savior, Matthew 18:16, and not from the law of Moses in Deuteronomy; not only because the words are the same with those in Matthew, but from the likeness of the case. In Deuteronomy, the law given concerns only judicial trials; in Matthew, it is a rule given for the management of persuasion used to reclaim offenders by fair means, before coming to the utmost extremity; which is the case of Paul here. The witnesses, which he means that he made use of to persuade them, being his two epistles. That, by witnesses, he means his two epistles, is plain from his way of expressing himself here, where he carefully sets down his telling them twice, viz. before in his former epistle, 1 Corinthians 4:19; and now a second time, in his second epistle, and also by these words, as if I were present with you a second time. By our Savior's rule, the offended person was to go twice to the offender; which the apostle refers to. Mr. Locke's exposition.