¹We know the earthly tent we live in will be destroyed. But we have a building made by God himself, a house not made by human hands. It lasts forever, waiting for us in heaven.

²In the meantime, we groan because we want so much to put on our heavenly home.

³It feels as if we’re wearing clothing now that’s falling off of us, and we want to wear clothes that won’t.

⁴While we live in this tent of ours, we groan and feel weighed down. We don’t want our clothes to fall off. Instead, we want to be fully dressed with our heavenly home. That way the part of us that dies will be will swallowed up in life.

⁵God made us for that very purpose, and he has given us the Holy Spirit as a down payment, a guarantee of what is still to come.

⁶This gives us the confidence to keep living the way we do. We know that as long as we’re at home in our bodies, we’re away from the Lord.

⁷We recognize this because we’re guided by faith, not by what we can see.

⁸We live this way confidently, as I said, because we’d rather be away from our bodies and at home with the Lord.

⁹So we try our best to make sure that he’ll be pleased with us, whether we’re at home in our bodies or away from them.

¹⁰We must all stand before Christ to be judged, and then each of us will receive what we deserve for the things we did while we were in our bodies, whether they were good or bad.

¹¹Knowing we’re going to face judgment puts the fear of God in us, and we don’t pretend to anyone that we’re something we’re not. What we truly are is clear to God, and I hope that you’re clearly aware of it too.

¹²We’re not trying to recommend ourselves to you again, but we are giving you a chance to be proud of us. That way you can answer those who judge people by external appearances, rather than by what’s in their hearts.

¹³If we’re out of our minds, as some people say, that’s for the sake of God. And if we’re in our right minds, that’s for your sakes.

¹⁴Christ’s love doesn’t give us any other choice. We’re convinced that one person died for everyone, and so everyone died.

¹⁵Christ died for everyone so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶So from now on we don’t look at anyone from the world’s point of view. Once we even looked at Christ that way, but we don’t anymore.

¹⁷If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone! The new is here!

¹⁸All this is from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ and gave us the task of bringing others back to him. God wants us to let them know that

¹⁹God was bringing the world back to himself through Christ and not holding people’s sins against them. God has trusted us with this message about how people can be brought back to him.

²⁰So we are Christ’s official messengers. It’s as if God were making his appeal through us. So we beg you, on Christ’s behalf: Come back to God!

²¹He never sinned, but God made him become sin for us, so that in him we could be made right with God.