Book of Common Prayer

¹⁶ So we do not give up. Our body gets weak, but our heart gets new strength day after day.

¹⁷ The load of trouble we carry now is a little heavy. But this trouble is getting something great and wonderful ready for us which will last for ever.

5 Our body is the house in which our spirit lives here on earth. When that house is destroyed, then God will give us another house. That house is not made by man's hand. But God made it. It will last for ever in heaven.

² While we are in the house we have now, we are always crying and wanting to have our house from heaven.

³ When we have moved into it, then we are sure that we will never be left without a house.

⁴ While we are in this house, we cry and are troubled. It is not that we want to move out of this house, but we want to move into the other one. Then this body which will die will be changed into one which will live.

⁵ God is the one who has made us ready for this change. He has already given us the Spirit. This is the first part of what we are to receive, and it proves that we will get more.

⁶ So we always feel sure. While we live in our bodies we are not in our house with the Lord. We know that.

⁷ We do not see these things, but we believe them.

⁸ We feel sure that we will want to leave this body and go to live with the Lord.

⁹ So it does not matter if we are living here or go to live there. Wherever we are we want to please the Lord.

¹⁰ We must all stand before Christ to be judged. Then we will receive pay. If we have done well, our pay will be good. If we have not done well, our pay will not be good.

¹⁸ Some of the Sadducees came to Jesus. They say that people do not rise from death. They asked Jesus a question.

¹⁹ `Teacher,' they said, `Moses gave us this law: if a man dies and leaves a wife but no children, then his brother must marry the wife and raise a family for his brother.

²⁰ There were seven brothers. The first one married. He died and left no child.

²¹ e second brother married the wife. He also died and left no child. It was the same with the third one.

²² All seven brothers married her. They all had no children. Last of all the woman died also.

²³ Now then when people rise from death, whose wife will she be? All seven of them had married her.'

²⁴ Jesus said to them, `You are wrong! You do not know what the holy writings say. And you do not know what power God has.

²⁵ When people rise from death, men and women do not marry. But they are like angels in heaven.

²⁶ People do rise from death! Have you never read what Moses wrote? It is in the place where we read about the small tree which burned. Moses tells how God said to him, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

²⁷ He is not the God of dead people, but of living people. The way you look at things is wrong altogether.'