2 Corinthians

5** For we know that if our earthly housing in the tent is pulled down we have a building that comes from God, an eternal unmanufactured house, in the heavens. 2 For this is what we groan about, longing to be clothed with the overgarment of our habitation from heaven, 3 if we are to have put it on and not be found naked— 4 for we who are in the tent are weighed down and groan over our wish not to be stripped but to be clothed with an overgarment in order that mortality may be engulfed by life. 5 And the one that framed us to this very end was God, he who gave us the Spirit as earnest-money. 6 So, being always ready for anything, and knowing that while at home in the body we are abroad from the Lord— 7 for we are walking by faith, not by a sight, 8 but we are ready for anything and willing, more willing, to be abroad from the body and at home with the Lord; 9 for this reason we make it our ambition too, whether at home or abroad, to be pleasing to him. 10* For we all have to come out to the bar of the Christ, each to get the payment for what he has done with his body, be it a good thing or a bad thing.

11 So, knowing the fear of the Lord, we are persuading men but are displayed in our true colors to God, and, I hope, in your consciences too. 12** We are not recommending ourselves to you again, but giving you material for boasting about us, in order that you may have something to say to those who boast of what they have to show and not of what is in them. 13 For if we are out of our senses it looks toward God, and if we are of sound mind it looks toward you. 14 For Christ’s love puts a pressure on us, our conclusion being that one died for all, hence all died, 15 and he died for all in order that those who are alive may no longer be alive looking toward themselves but toward the one who died and rose for them, 16 so that we, from now on, do not know anybody in the way of flesh. Even though we have known Christ in the way of flesh, yet now we no longer do. 17 So that if one is in Christ it is a new creation, what originally existed is bygone, here have new things come into existence. 18 But everything is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the errand of communicating the reconciliation, 19* how God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their offenses against them, and consigning to us the word of the reconciliation.

20 So we come as ambassadors for Christ, as if it were God appealing to you by us; speaking for Christ we beg you, be reconciled to God. 21 Him who had not known sin he made into sin for us in order that we may become righteousness of God’s in him.