I consider that what we suffer at this present time

cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.

All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his sons.

For creation was not condemned to lose its purpose,

not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so.

Yet there was the hope that creation itself

would one day be set free from its slavery

to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God.

For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain,

like the pain of childbirth.

But it is not just creation alone which groans;

as we wait for God to make us his sons and set our whole being free.

For it was by hope that we were saved; but if we see what we hope for,

then it is not really hope. For who hopes for what we do not see?

But is we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.