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New Testament Reading - Future glory

²²For we know that even the things of nature, like animals and plants, suffer in sickness and death as they await this great event.^{a 23}And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us — bodies that will never be sick again and will never die.

²⁴We are saved by trusting. And trusting means looking forward to getting something we don’t yet have — for a man who already has something doesn’t need to hope and trust that he will get it. ²⁵But if we must keep trusting God for something that hasn’t happened yet, it teaches us to wait patiently and confidently.

²⁶And in the same way — by our faith^b — the Holy Spirit helps us with our daily problems and in our praying. For we don’t even know what we should pray for nor how to pray as we should, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with such feeling that it cannot be expressed in words. ²⁷And the Father who knows all hearts knows, of course, what the Spirit is saying as he pleads for us in harmony with God’s own will.

1. Literally, “the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now.”
2. Implied; Literally, “in like manner.”