2 Corinthians 5

1For we know that if the tent we live in here on earth is taken down, we have a building from God, a house that no human hands have made, eternal, in heaven. 2So in this tent we groan, longing to put on our dwelling from heaven over the one we have, 3sure that once we have put it on we will not be found naked. 4While we are in this tent we groan under its weight. It is not that we want to take it off; we want to put the new one on over it, so that life may swallow up all that is mortal. 5It is God who has prepared us for this very thing, and he has given us the Spirit as a down payment.

6So we always have courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7for we make our way by faith, not by sight. 8We have courage, then, and we would much rather move out of the body and make our home with the Lord. 9That is why we set our hearts on pleasing him, whether we are still at home in the body or have left it. 10For all of us must be laid open before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what matches the things done in the body, whether good or worthless.

11Because we know the fear of the Lord, we set out to persuade people. God already sees us clearly for what we are, and I hope your consciences see us just as clearly. 12We are not recommending ourselves to you again. Rather, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so that you will have something to say to those who take pride in outward show and not in what is in the heart. 13If we are out of our mind, that is for God. If we are sensible, that is for you. 14It is the love of Christ that drives us on. We have reached this judgment: one has died on behalf of all, and so all have died. 15He died on behalf of all, so that those who live would no longer live for their own sake, but for the sake of the one who died and was raised on their behalf.

16So from now on we look at no one by merely human standards. Even if we once knew Christ by those standards, that is not how we know him now. 17So if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of a new creation. The old things have gone, and look, new things have come into being. 18And all of it is God’s doing. Through Christ he has reconciled us to himself, and he has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19For it was God who, in Christ, was at work reconciling the world to himself. He did not hold their trespasses against them, and he has put the word of reconciliation in our keeping. 20So we are ambassadors who speak for Christ, and it is God himself who makes his appeal through us. Speaking for Christ, we plead with you: be reconciled to God. 21Christ had never known sin, yet for our sake God made him to be sin, so that, united with him, we might become God’s righteousness.