1. 1Here is the second step we take to free your mind from the belief in outside force pitted against your own. 2You make attempts at kindness and forgiveness. 3Yet you turn them to attack again, unless you find external gratitude and lavish thanks. 4Your gifts must be received with honor, lest they be withdrawn. 5And so you think God’s gifts are loans at best; at worst, deceptions which would cheat you of defenses, to ensure that when He strikes He will not fail to kill.

2. 1How easily are God and guilt confused by those who know not what their thoughts can do. 2Deny your strength, and weakness must become salvation to you. 3See yourself as bound, and bars become your home. 4Nor will you leave the prison house, or claim your strength, until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed, and found and fully rec­ognized.

3. 1The world must thank you when you offer it release from your illusions. 2Yet your thanks belong to you as well, for its release can only mirror yours. 3Your gratitude is all your gifts require, that they be a lasting offering of a thankful heart, released from hell forever. 4Is it this you would undo by taking back your gifts, because they were not honored? 5It is you who honor them and give them fitting thanks, for it is you who have received the gifts.

4. 1It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy. 2In his mind there is a part that joins with yours in thanking you. 3It does not matter if your gifts seem lost and ineffectual. 4They are received where they are given. 5In your gratitude are they ac­cepted universally, and thankfully acknowledged by the Heart of God Himself. 6And would you take them back, when He has gratefully accepted them?

5. 1God blesses every gift you give to Him, and every gift is given Him, because it can be given only to yourself. 2And what belongs to God must be His Own. 3Yet you will never realize His gifts are sure, eternal, changeless, limitless, forever giving out, extending love and adding to your never-ending joy while you forgive but to attack again.

6. 1Withdraw the gifts you give, and you will think that what is given you has been withdrawn. 2But learn to let forgiveness take away the sins you think you see outside yourself, and you can never think the gifts of God are lent but for a little while, before He snatches them away again in death. 3For death will have no meaning for you then.

7. 1And with the end of this belief is fear forever over. 2Thank your Self for this, for He is grateful only unto God, and He gives thanks for you unto Himself. 3To everyone who lives will Christ yet come, for everyone must live and move in Him. 4His Being in His Father is secure, because Their Will is One. 5Their gratitude to all They have created has no end, for gratitude remains a part of love.

8. 1Thanks be to you, the holy Son of God. 2For as you were cre­ated, you contain all things within your Self. 3And you are still as God created you. 4Nor can you dim the light of your perfection. 5In your heart the Heart of God is laid. 6He holds you dear, because you are Himself. 7All gratitude belongs to you, because of what you are.

9. 1Give thanks as you receive it. 2Be you free of all ingratitude to anyone who makes your Self complete. 3And from this Self is no one left outside. 4Give thanks for all the countless channels which extend this Self. 5All that you do is given unto Him. 6All that you think can only be His Thoughts, sharing with Him the holy Thoughts of God. 7Earn now the gratitude you have denied yourself when you forgot the function God has given you. 8But never think that He has ever ceased to offer thanks to you.