Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁶ For this reason we don’t lose heart. Even if our outer humanity is decaying, our inner humanity is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ This slight momentary trouble of ours is working to produce a weight of glory, passing and surpassing everything, lasting forever; ¹⁸ for we don’t look at the things that can be seen, but at the things that can’t be seen. After all, the things you can see are here today and gone tomorrow; but the things you can’t see are everlasting.

A house waiting in the heavens

5 For we know that if our earthly house, our present “tent,” is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house no human hands have built: it is everlasting, in the heavenly places. ² At the present moment, you see, we are groaning, as we long to put on our heavenly building, ³ in the belief that by putting it on we won’t turn out to be naked. ⁴ Yes: in the present “tent,” we groan under a great weight. But we don’t want to put it off; we want to put on something else on top, so that what is doomed to die may be swallowed up with life. ⁵ It is God who has been at work in us to do this, the God who has given us the spirit as the first installment and guarantee.