1. We know that our body—the tent we live in here on earth—will be destroyed. But when that happens, God will have a home for us to live in. It will not be the kind of home people build here. It will be a home in heaven that will continue forever.
2. But now we are tired of this body. We want God to give us our heavenly home.
3. It will clothe us and we will not be naked.
4. While we live in this tent, we have burdens and so we complain. I don’t mean that we want to remove this tent, but we want to be clothed with our heavenly home. Then this body that dies will be covered with life.
5. This is what God himself made us for. And he has given us the Spirit as the first payment to guarantee the life to come.
6. So we always have confidence. We know that while we live in this body, we are away from the Lord.
7. We live by what we believe will happen, not by what we can see.
8. So I say that we have confidence. And we really want to be away from this body and be at home with the Lord.
9. Our only goal is to always please the Lord, whether we are living here in this body or there with him.
10. We must all stand before Christ to be judged. Everyone will get what they should. They will be paid for whatever they did—good or bad—when they lived in this earthly body.
11. We know what it means to fear the Lord, so we try to help people accept the truth. God knows what we really are, and I hope that in your hearts you know us too.
12. We are not trying to prove ourselves to you again. But we are telling you about ourselves. We are giving you reasons to be proud of us. Then you will have an answer for those who are proud about what can be seen. They don’t care about what is in a person’s heart.