Montgomery - II Corinthians - 5

5:1  For I know, if this earthly tent of mine were struck, I have a mansion built by God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

5:2  For in this tent I am groaning, earnestly longing to be under the cover of my heavenly habitation; if so be that being so covered,

5:3  I shall not be found naked.

5:4  For in this tent of mine I am groaning in deep trouble; not that I wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up in life.

5:5  And He who has wrought me out for this very end is God, who has given me his Spirit as pledge.

5:6  Therefore I am always of good courage, because I well know that while I am at home in the body, I am in banishment from the Lord,

5:7  for I am walking by faith, not by sight.

5:8  So I have good courage, and am well pleased rather, to be in banishment from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

5:9  And for this reason I also make it home with the Lord.

5:10  For we must all be made manifest, in our true characters, before the Judgment-seat of Christ; so that each one may receive according to that which he has done in his body, whether good or evil.

5:11  So, because I know the fear of God, I "persuade men." What I am is manifest to God, and I hope manifest also to your conscience.

5:12  I am not "commending myself to you again," but I am giving you an occasion of boasting on my behalf, so that you may have an answer ready for those who boast in externals, and not in the heart.

5:13  For if I was "beside myself," it was to God; of if I am now "of sound mind," it is for you.

5:14  For the love of Christ overmasters me; because I thus judge that if One has died for all, then all have died;

5:15  and that he died for all in order that the living may live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again for them.

5:16  Therefore henceforth I know no one simply as a man - even if I have known Christ as a man, yet now I do so no longer.

5:17  So there is a new creation when any man is in Christ. The old life has passed away, behold, the new is come.

5:18  And all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled me to himself, and gave me the ministry of reconciliation;

5:19  how that God was in Christ reconciling a world to himself, not reckoning to men their trespasses; and that to me he has entrusted the message of that reconciliation.

5:20  On Christ’s behalf, then, I come as ambassador. It is as though God was entreating you, through me, on Christ’s behalf I beg you to be reconciled to God.

5:21  Him who knew no sin, in our behalf he has made to be sin; so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.