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13:12 As an apostle of Christ’s whole Church, Paul brought greetings from all the followers of Christ, or from all the followers in the place where he was writing this letter.
13:13 This farewell blessing is used word for word by the priest at the beginning of the Mass, with the people responding, “And with your spirit.”
b. [13:10] 10:8.
c. [13:12] Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20 /
Phil 4:22; 1 Thes 5:26; 1 Pt 5:14. d. [13:13] Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 16:23.
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 CORINTHIANS 
5* Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, of course, you fail the test. 6I hope you will discover that we have not failed. 7But we pray to God that you may not do evil, not that we may appear to have passed the test but that you may do what is right, even though we may seem to have failed. 8For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9For we rejoice when we are weak but you are strong. What we pray for is your improvement.
10* b I am writing this while I am away, so that when I come I may not have to be severe in virtue of the authority that the Lord has given me to build up and not to tear down.
v. CONClUSION*
11Finally, brothers, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you.c
13The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you.d
* [13:5–9] Paul turns the challenge mentioned in 2 Cor 13:3 on them: they are to put themselves to the test to demonstrate whether Christ is in them. These verses involve a complicated series of plays on the theme of dokimē (testing, proof, passing and failing a test). Behind this stands the familiar distinction between present human judgment and nal divine judgment. This is the nal appearance of the theme (cf. 2 Cor 10:18; 11:15; 12:19).
* [13:10] Authority. . .to build up and not to tear down: Paul restates the purpose of his letter in language that echoes 2 Cor 10:2, 8, emphasizing the positive purpose of his authority in their regard. This verse forms an inclusion with the topic sentence of the section (2 Cor 12:19), as well as with the opening of this entire portion of the letter (2 Cor 10:1–2).
* [13:11–13] These verses may have originally concluded 2 Cor 10–13, but they have nothing speci cally to do with the material of that section. It is also possible to consider them a conclusion to the whole of 2 Corinthians in its present edited form. The exhortations are general, including a nal appeal for peace in the community. The letter ends calmly, after its many storms, with the prospect of ecclesial unity and divine blessing. The nal verse is one of the clearest trinitarian passages in the New Testament.