Heart translates the Greek word “bowels” (see comments on 6.12). Even King James Version, which is normally quite literal, here translates “inward affection.” The whole expression his heart goes out … to you is more literally “his bowels are abundantly toward you.” This simply means that his love for the Christians at Corinth has grown stronger. New American Bible reads “His heart embraces you with an expanding love.” And Contemporary English Version conveys the same idea with the common language equivalent “Titus loves all of you very much.”

The word obedience is a noun in Greek. Some languages may need to use a verb and make explicit who obeyed whom, as does Good News Translation (Revised English Bible: “how ready you all were to do what he asked”).

Paul uses the words fear and trembling in 1 Cor 2.3; Eph 6.5; and Phil 2.12. Pointing to passages such as Exo 15.16 and Psa 2.11, where human beings respond with “fear and trembling” in awareness of God’s presence, some interpreters think Paul means here with “fear and trembling in the sight of God” (see 7.1, 12). More likely Titus was the object of their fear and trembling.

In some languages it may be more natural to restructure the ideas of this verse along the following lines: “Therefore, when he thinks of the way all of you obeyed him and how you received him with great respect, his love for you increases.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellingworth, Paul. A Handbook on Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .