Beginning

God has prepared a new body for us

5 Our bodies are like a tent that we live in here on earth. One day, that home will come to an end. But we know that God will give us a new home. It is not a house that a human builder has built. God has built it for us in heaven and we will live there for ever. ² Now, while we are in our body here on earth, we cry inside ourselves. We want to go and live in our house that is in heaven. ³ That will be like new clothes that we put on. When we go to live there, we will not be without clothes and ashamed.

⁴ While we still live in our bodies here on earth, we cry inside ourselves. Many difficult things happen to us. We do not really want to take off our old body. But we do want to put on our new body, like new clothes. When that happens, we will no longer need our old body which had to die. Instead we will have a new body that will live for ever. ⁵ God is the one who has prepared us to have a new life in heaven one day. He has given his Spirit to be with us now. Because of that, we know that we will receive all God's good things one day.

⁶ Because God's Spirit is with us, we continue to be brave. While we still live here on earth, we know that we are not yet at home with the Lord. ⁷ As we live here, we have to trust God. We do not yet see the things that belong to heaven. ⁸ We are brave because we trust God. We would like to go away from our body here on earth. Then we would go to be at home with the Lord. And that would be better! ⁹ But all the time we want to please the Lord. We want to do that while we are still at home in our body here on earth. We also want to please him when we go away from these bodies. ¹⁰ Because all of us must go and stand in front of Christ as our judge. He will decide about the things that we have done during our lives here on earth. Whether we have done good things or bad things, we will receive what is right for us.

God makes us new people in Christ

¹¹ We know that the Lord will judge us, so we are careful to obey him. Because of that, we tell God's message to people. We want them to believe in God. And God himself knows that we try to do what is right. I hope that you know that also, when you think about it.

¹² We are not trying again to make you think that our work is good. But we do want to give you the chance to be proud of us. Then you will be able to show the false teachers that they are wrong. They are proud about what they look like on the outside. They do not think about what they are really like inside themselves. ¹³ To some people, we may seem to be crazy. That is because we want to serve God. But if we seem to be wise, that is to help you.

¹⁴ Whatever we do, we do it because Christ loves us. We know that one man, Christ, died on behalf of all people. So we also know that all of us died with him. ¹⁵ He died on behalf of all people. So, while we live, we no longer live to please ourselves. Instead, we live to please Christ. He is the one that died on our behalf. He is the one that God raised up, to live again.

¹⁶ So that changes how we think about people. We no longer use human ideas to think what they are like. At one time, we thought about Christ as humans think. But now we think about him very differently! ¹⁷ When anyone belongs to Christ, they become a new person. Their old way of life has gone. Their new life has begun!

¹⁸ All this is what God does for us. Because of what Christ has done, God has brought us back to himself, as his friends. Now he wants us to bring other people to be his friends too. That is the job that he has given to us. ¹⁹ God's message is this: By Christ's death, God was bringing people of the world back to himself, as his friends. He would no longer keep their sins in his thoughts. This is the message that God wants us to tell people.

²⁰ So we speak to people on behalf of Christ. It is like this: When we speak, God himself is speaking to you. On behalf of Christ, we say to you, ‘Please come back to God, as his friends!’ ²¹ Christ never did any wrong thing, but God punished him as if he had. He died as punishment for our sins. As a result, we become right with God when we belong to Christ. We become right, because he is right.

6 So, as we work together with God, we tell you to be careful. Remember that God has been very kind and he has forgiven you. Do not waste that! ² In the Bible God says:

³ We do not want anyone to think bad things about our work. So we do nothing that might cause trouble for anyone. ⁴ Instead, in everything that we do, we want to show that we are God's servants. When people want to hurt us, we are patient and brave. We have many troubles. We become sad and upset. ⁵ Sometimes people hit us. They put us in prison. They attack us. But we work hard. We cannot always sleep at night. We are often hungry. ⁶ We serve God honestly and with clean thoughts. We know what is true. We are patient and kind. God's Holy Spirit helps us. We love people in an honest way. ⁷ We speak a true message. God's power gives us strength. We do what is right, so we fight like soldiers on God's behalf. It is like we have God's weapons in both hands! ⁸ Sometimes people respect us as important. Sometimes they think that we are worth nothing. People may insult us, or they may praise us. We only say true things, but some people still think that we deceive others. ⁹ Some people do not want to know us. Other people accept us as God's servants. It seems like we are dying, but look! We are still alive! People punish us, but they do not kill us. ¹⁰ We seem to be sad, but really we are always happy. We seem to be poor, but we make many people rich. We seem to have nothing, but really we have everything.

¹¹ Our friends at Corinth, we have spoken to you very honestly. We have shown you how much we love you. ¹² We have done nothing to stop you from being our friends. But you have not really wanted to become our friends. ¹³ I am speaking to you as I would speak to my own children. Be fair to us! Accept us as your friends, just as we have accepted you.

Believers belong to God

¹⁴ Do not become united with people who do not believe in Christ. God has made you right with himself. Right and wrong cannot work together. Light and dark cannot join together. ¹⁵ Christ will never agree with the Devil. People who believe in Christ are completely different from people who do not believe. ¹⁶ Idols do not belong in God's house. Remember that we believers are the house of the God who lives for ever. This is what God has said:

¹⁷ And so, the Lord says:

¹⁸ He also says:

Paul loves the believers at Corinth

7 So, my friends, God has promised these things to us. So we must keep ourselves clean from everything that makes our bodies or our spirits unclean. We must respect and obey God. Then we will become more and more like him.

² Be friends with us. We have done nothing wrong to any of you. We have not hurt anyone. We have not cheated anyone. ³ I am not saying this to make you feel ashamed. As I have told you before, you are our special friends. We will continue to love you, whether we live together or we die together.

⁴ I know you and I trust you. I am proud of you. You have helped me to be strong. So, even when we have many troubles, I am still very happy.

⁵ When we arrived in Macedonia, our bodies did not rest at all.^[e] We had many kinds of trouble. All round us, people quarrelled with us. Inside us, we were afraid. ⁶ But when people feel upset, God helps them to be strong. And God made us happy when Titus arrived. ⁷ God comforted us not only because Titus came to us. He comforted us also by what Titus told us about you. He said that you had helped him to be strong. He told us that you want to see me. He told us that you are very sad about what happened. He told us also that you are ready to help me. Because of what Titus told us about you, I was very happy.

⁸ But even if I made you sad by my letter, I am not sorry about that. At one time, I was sorry that I had written it. I saw that my letter had made you sad. But you were sad only for a short time. ⁹ So now I am happy, but not because my letter made you sad. No, I am happy because it made you turn away from wrong things. You became sad as God wanted you to be sad. So, when the letter made you sad, we did not really hurt you. ¹⁰ People need to become sad in the way that God wants. When they are sad like that, it causes them to turn away from wrong things. Then God saves them from their sins. They will never be sorry about that! But when people become sad in the way that the world wants, it does not help them. They do not turn to God and they die in their spirits.

¹¹ You became sad in the way that God wanted. And see what good results that has brought! It has made you work hard to do good things. You want to show people that you do what is right. You are angry against sin. You want to obey God. You want to make things right again. You want to please God. You want to punish anyone who does wrong things. In all these ways, you have shown that you are right. You have done everything that was necessary in this matter.

¹² So why did I write that letter to you? It was not because of the person who did the wrong thing. Nor was it to help the person that he hurt. No. I wrote the letter to show you something about yourselves. I wanted God to show you that you do really love us and you respect us. ¹³ That is how God has comforted us.

It was not only us that God comforted. When Titus came, we were very happy to see how happy he was too. He was happy because all of you had taken care of him. ¹⁴ I had told Titus that I was very proud of you. When he came to you, you showed that I was right about you. We have always spoken only true things to you. And when we said good things about you to Titus, you showed that those things were also true. ¹⁵ Now, when Titus thinks about you, he loves you even more. He remembers that you were ready to obey him. You respected his authority and you received him into your homes.

¹⁶ So now I am very happy because I trust you to do what is right.

Help for the poor people at Jerusalem

8 My Christian friends, let me tell you about the believers in the churches in Macedonia. God has been very kind to them. ² They have had bad troubles, but they continued to be very happy. As a result, they gave a lot of money to other people. They themselves are very poor, but they still helped other people a lot. ³ Let me tell you this. They gave as much money as they were able to give. Then they gave even more than that! They gave it because they wanted to. ⁴ They wanted the chance to help God's people. That would make them happy. So they asked us many times to help them to do this. ⁵ They did more than we had even hoped for! First, they gave themselves to the Lord. Then they also gave themselves to us. They did that because God wanted them to do it.

⁶ Because of that, we asked Titus to continue to help you. He is the person who helped you to start giving money. So he will help you to finish this good work. ⁷ You have so much of everything! You trust God very well. You speak well. You know everything. You want to do many good things. You love us even more than we love you! So also do the best that you can as you give money to help others.

⁸ I am not telling you that you must do this. I have told you how much other believers want to give their money. In that way, I want to see if you really love other people who need your help. ⁹ You know that our Lord Jesus Christ is very kind. He was rich, but he made himself poor to help you. So then, because he became poor, you could become rich.^[f]

¹⁰ This is what I think you should do. Last year, you were the first people to give money. You really wanted to do that. So the best thing for you is to finish what you started to do. ¹¹ Now finish the work. When you started, you wanted very much to do it. Now you should want just as much to finish it. You should give what you are able to give. ¹² If you really want to give, then God will accept your gift. God does not want you to give more than you are able to give. He will be happy about what you can give.

¹³ My purpose is not to bring trouble to you. You should not have pain while other people have plenty. Instead, both you and they should have enough. ¹⁴ At this time, you yourselves have plenty. So you are able to give to those people who do not have enough. One day, things may change. They may have plenty, and you may not have enough. Then they can give money to help you. In that way, you will all have enough when you need it. ¹⁵ It says this in the Bible:

Paul is sending Titus to Corinth

¹⁶ Titus wants to help you just as much as we do. We thank God that he has made Titus ready to do that. ¹⁷ He was very happy when we asked him to come to you. He himself already wanted to help you. So he really decided to visit you for himself. ¹⁸ We are sending another man with Titus. He is also a believer. The Christians in all the other churches praise this man. They say that he works hard to tell people the good news about Christ. ¹⁹ Those Christians in the other churches have also chosen this man to travel with us. They want him to help us when we take this gift. Our work will show that the Lord is great. It will also show that we are ready to help.

²⁰ We want to be very careful about this large gift of money. That is why the other believer will come with us. We do not want anyone to say that we have done something wrong. ²¹ Our purpose is to do only what is right. We want the Lord to see that, and people must see it as well.^[h]

²² We will also send another believer along with the other men. This man has always shown us that we can trust him. He has wanted to help in many different ways. Now that he is very sure about you, he wants to help even more.

²³ As for Titus himself, he works along with me, to help you. The other believers are coming on behalf of the churches that sent them. They want to show that Christ is great. ²⁴ So show these men that you love them. Then all the churches will be sure about you. They will know that we were right to be proud of you.

9 I do not need to write to you about the money that you want to send to God's people in Jerusalem. ² I know that you want to help very much. I have told the believers in Macedonia how good you are. I tell them that you believers in Achaia have been ready to give your money since last year. Because you are so ready to help, most of them now also want to help. ³ But I do not want the way that I have praised you not to be true. So I am sending these men, our Christian friends, to come to you. I want to be sure that you will be ready to give your money. That is what I have told people about you.

⁴ Perhaps some believers from Macedonia might come with me. If you are not ready when we come, we would be ashamed. We would be ashamed because we trusted you. And I think that you would be ashamed as well! ⁵ So I decided to tell these men to visit you before I come myself. They will help you to prepare the gift that you promised. Then it will be ready when I arrive. Everyone will know that you really wanted to give this gift. Nobody has made you give it.

It is good to give as much as you can

⁶ Remember this: If a farmer plants only a few seeds, he will not get much as a result. But if he plants plenty of seeds, he will get a big harvest. ⁷ Each of you should think carefully and then decide how much you can give. Then you will not be sad to give that money. Nobody has made you give it. God loves someone who is happy to give help to other people.

⁸ Since God loves you, he is able to give you more than you need. You will always have every good thing that you need for yourselves. And you will have enough to do many good things to help other people. ⁹ The Bible says this about someone who helps other people:

¹⁰ It is God who supplies seeds for the farmer to plant. It is God who supplies bread for food. God will help you in the same way. He will give you plenty of things so that you can help other people. You will be like a farmer who plants many seeds. And God will cause those seeds to grow. There will be many good results from the help that you give to other people. That will be like a great harvest. ¹¹ God will make you rich with many good things. As a result, you will always be able to give plenty to other people. Many people will thank God because of your gifts that we take to them.

¹² This good work that you are doing is helping God's people. It is helping to supply what they need. And it is not only doing that. It is also causing many people to thank God very much. ¹³ Your gift of money will show people that you really want to help. People will say that God is great. They will see that you want to obey God. They will see that you are happy to give to them, and to everyone else. They will see that you really believe the good news about Christ, as you say you do. ¹⁴ They will want to thank you. They will pray to God for you. They will do that because they see how very kind God has been to you.

¹⁵ Yes, we should all thank God for his very great gift.^[j] That gift is too great to describe it with words!