 He's talking about a previous letter he had written to them where he had to admonish them, rebuke them, discipline them about an issue in the church where there was sin that wasn't being handled God's way. And people were making light of sin. They weren't dealing with it. So he'd written a rather stern letter to them previously. Now he refers back to that letter. And he says, I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears.