Do Not Boast About Tomorrow

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow ^[a]we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; ¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? ^(A)It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, ^(B)“If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

Assurance of the Resurrection

5 For we know that if ^(A)our earthly ^[a]house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house ^(B)not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² For in this ^(C)we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our ^[b]habitation which is from heaven, ³ if indeed, ^(D)having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. ⁴ For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, ^(E)but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also ^(F)has given us the Spirit as ^[c]a guarantee.

⁶ So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.

^21 (A)who will transform our lowly body that it may be ^(B)conformed to His glorious body, ^(C)according to the working by which He is able even to ^(D)subdue all things to Himself.

¹⁴ and a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, ¹⁵ when the ^[a]Sabeans ^[b]raided them and took them away—indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

¹⁶ While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and ^[c]consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

¹⁷ While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels and took them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

¹⁸ While he was still speaking, another also came and said, ^(A)“Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, ¹⁹ and suddenly a great wind came from ^[d]across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

⁷ So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils ^(A)from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. ⁸ And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself ^(B)while he sat in the midst of the ashes.

Living Sacrifices to God

12 I ^(A)beseech^[a] you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies ^(B)a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your ^[b]reasonable service.