Our Eternal Dwelling1 For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For indeed in this we groan, ardently desiring to have put on our house which [is] from heaven;
3 if indeed being also clothed we shall not be found naked.
4 For indeed we who are in the tabernacle groan, being burdened; while yet we do not wish to be unclothed, but clothed, that [what is] mortal may be swallowed up by life.
5 Now he that has wrought us for this very thing [is] God, who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit.
6 Therefore [we are] always confident, and know that while present in the body we are absent from the Lord,
7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight;)
8 we are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
9 Wherefore also we are zealous, whether present or absent, to be agreeable to him.
10 For we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of the Christ, that each may receive the things [done] in the body, according to those he has done, whether [it be] good or evil.
We are Christ's Ambassadors11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men, but have been manifested to God, and I hope also that we have been manifested in your consciences.
12 [For] we do not again commend ourselves to you, but [we are] giving to you occasion of boast in our behalf, that ye may have [such] with those boasting in countenance, and not in heart.
13 For whether we are beside ourselves, [it is] to God; or are sober, [it is] for you.
14 For the love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died;
15 and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised.
16 So that *we* henceforth know no one according to flesh; but if even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know [him thus] no longer.
17 So if any one [be] in Christ, [there is] a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new:
18 and all things [are] of the God who has reconciled us to himself by [Jesus] Christ, and given to us the ministry of that reconciliation:
19 how that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their offences; and putting in us the word of that reconciliation.
20 We are ambassadors therefore for Christ, God as [it were] beseeching by us, we entreat for Christ, Be reconciled to God.
21 Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that *we* might become God's righteousness in him.