Now we do not want you to be uninformed, believers, about those who are asleep [in death], so that you will not grieve [for them] as the others do who have no hope [beyond this present life].

Woe to you! For you are like graves which are unmarked, and people walk over them without being aware of it [and are ceremonially unclean].”

And [as for the fact] that He raised Him from the dead, never again to return to decay [in the grave], He has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David [those blessings and mercies that were promised to him].’

For this reason He also says in another Psalm, ‘You will not allow Your Holy One to see decay.’

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was buried among his fathers and experienced decay [in the grave];

but He whom God raised [to life] did not experience decay [in the grave].

After Paul arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many serious charges against him which they were not able to prove,

“Their throat is an open grave;
They [habitually] deceive with their tongues.”
“The venom of asps is beneath their lips.”

And not only this, but we too, who have the first fruits of the Spirit [a joyful indication of the blessings to come], even we groan inwardly, as we wait eagerly for [the sign of] our adoption as sons—the redemption and transformation of our body [at the resurrection].