Letters to the Churches

and if there be no rising again of dead persons, neither hath Christ risen;

and if Christ hath not risen, then void is our preaching, and void also your faith,

and we also are found false witnesses of God, because we did testify of God that He raised up the Christ, whom He did not raise if then dead persons do not rise;

for if dead persons do not rise, neither hath Christ risen,

and if Christ hath not risen, vain is your faith, ye are yet in your sins;

then, also, those having fallen asleep in Christ did perish;

if in this life we have hope in Christ only, of all men we are most to be pitied.

And now, Christ hath risen out of the dead--the first-fruits of those sleeping he became,

for since through man is the death, also through man is a rising again of the dead,

for even as in Adam all die, so also in the Christ all shall be made alive,

and each in his proper order, a first-fruit Christ, afterwards those who are the Christ's, in his presence,

then--the end, when he may deliver up the reign to God, even the Father, when he may have made useless all rule, and all authority and power--

for it behoveth him to reign till he may have put all the enemies under his feet--

the last enemy is done away--death;

for all things He did put under his feet, and, when one may say that all things have been subjected, it is evident that He is excepted who did subject the all things to him,

and when the all things may be subjected to him, then the Son also himself shall be subject to Him, who did subject to him the all things, that God may be the all in all.

Seeing what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? why also are they baptized for the dead?

why also do we stand in peril every hour?

Every day do I die, by the glorying of you that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord:

if after the manner of a man with wild beasts I fought in Ephesus, what the advantage to me if the dead do not rise? let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!

Be not led astray; evil communications corrupt good manners;

awake up, as is right, and sin not; for certain have an ignorance of God; for shame to you I say it .

But some one will say, `How do the dead rise?

unwise! thou--what thou dost sow is not quickened except it may die;

and that which thou dost sow, not the body that shall be dost thou sow, but bare grain, it may be of wheat, or of some one of the others,