always offering every prayer of mine with joy [and with specific requests] for all of you,

For I am certain of this very thing, that he by whom the good work was started in you will make it complete till the day of Jesus Christ:

I should have this opinion of you, being sensible you make the dispensation I am under a common concern, with respect to my confinement, and the defence and confirmation of the gospel.

Now it is my purpose to make clear to you, brothers, that the cause of the good news has been helped by my experiences;

What difference does this make? Christ is, nevertheless, preached in every way, whether in pretense or in truth; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice:

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that, through your prayers and through a rich supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 'all this will make for my Salvation.'

But if I go on living in the flesh--if this is the fruit of my work--then I do not see what decision to make.

and yet your needs make it very necessary for me to stay on here.

If then I can appeal to you as the followers of Christ, if there is any persuasive power in love and any common sharing of the Spirit, or if you have any tender-heartedness and compassion, make my joy complete by being of one mind,

make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;

Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,

who, although He existed in the form and unchanging essence of God [as One with Him, possessing the fullness of all the divine attributes—the entire nature of deity], did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped or asserted [as if He did not already possess it, or was afraid of losing it];

Therefore, my dearly-loved friends, as I have always found you obedient, labour earnestly with fear and trembling--not merely as though I were present with you, but much more now since I am absent from you--labour earnestly, I say, to make sure of your own salvation.

So joyfully welcome him in the Lord and make sure you honor such people highly,

because on account of the work of Christ he came near to the point of death, risking his life in order that {he might make up for your inability to serve me}.

For we are the true circumcision--we who render to God a spiritual worship and make our boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in outward ceremonies:

Not that I have already obtained it [this goal of being Christlike] or have already been made perfect, but I actively press on so that I may take hold of that [perfection] for which Christ Jesus took hold of me and made me His own.

All of us who are mature [pursuing spiritual perfection] should have this attitude. And if in any respect you have a different attitude, that too God will make clear to you.

He will change our unassuming bodies and make them like his glorious body through the power that enables him to bring everything under his authority.

I make request to Euodias and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.

And I make request to you, true helper in my work, to see to the needs of those women who took part with me in the good news, with Clement and the rest of my brother-workers whose names are in the book of life.

Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God.

it is not my indigence that makes me say this: for I have learn'd, in whatevever state I am, therewith to be content: I know how to be in want,

I know [how] both {to make do with little} and I know [how] {to have an abundance}. In everything and in all [things] I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both {to have an abundance} and to go without.

I can do everything in the strength of him who makes me strong!