2 Corinthians 5

2 Corinthians 5 is the fifth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It is authored by Paul the Apostle and Timothy (2 Corinthians 1:1) in Macedonia in 55–56 CE.

The 17th-century theologian John Gill summarises the contents of this chapter: "The apostle, in this chapter, enlarges upon the saints' comfortable assurance, expectation, and desire of the heavenly glory; discourses of the diligence and industry of himself and other Gospel ministers in preaching the word, with the reasons that induced them to it; and closes it with a commendation of the Gospel ministry from the important subject, sum, and substance of it."

Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 21 verses.

Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
 * Papyrus 46 (c. AD 200)
 * Codex Vaticanus (325–350)
 * Codex Sinaiticus (330–360)
 * Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (c. 450)
 * Codex Freerianus (c. 450; extant verses 8–10,17–18)
 * Codex Claromontanus (c. 550)

Verse 1

 * For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.


 * "Our earthly house": refers to the body; similarly, Plato also calls the body γὴινον σκήνον, gēinon skēnov, "an earthly tabernacle", just as the Jews call the body a house or a "tabernacle." Abarbinel paraphrases "my dwelling place, which is the body, for that is "the tabernacle of the soul"."
 * "House not made with hands, eternal in the heavens": can be interpreted as "glorified body" after resurrection, or "the holy house" in the world to come, which might be intended in or.