yet when anything is exposed by the light, it is made visible, and anything that is made visible is light.

Do not get drunk on wine, for that is profligacy, but be filled with the Spirit,

That is the way husbands ought to love their wives??s if they were their own bodies; a man who loves his wife is really loving himself,

Children, as Christians obey your parents, for that is right.

"You must honor your father and mother"??hat is the first commandment accompanied with a promise??3 "so that you may prosper and have a long life on earth."

for you know that everyone, slave or free, will be rewarded by the Lord for his good conduct.

You who are masters, too, must treat your slaves in the same way, and cease to threaten them, for you know that their Master and yours is in heaven, and that he will show no partiality.

So you must take God's armor, so that when the evil day comes you will be able to make a stand, and when it is all over to hold your ground.

and for me, that when I open my lips I may be given a message, so that I may boldly make known the secret of the good news,

for the sake of which I am an envoy, and in prison. Pray that, when I tell it, I may have the courage to speak as I ought.

In order that you also may know how I am, our dear brother Tychicus, a faithful helper in the Lord's service, will tell you all about it.

That is the very reason I am sending him, to let you know how I am, and to cheer your hearts.

For I am certain that he who has begun the good work in you will finish it for the Day of Jesus Christ.

And I have a right to feel in this way about you all, because both when I am in prison and when I am defending and vindicating our right to preach the good news, I have you in my heart as all sharing that privilege with me.

And it is my prayer that your love may grow richer and richer in knowledge and perfect insight,

so that you may have a sense of what is vital, and may be men of transparent character and blameless life, in preparation for the Day of Christ,

Now I want to assure you, brothers, that what has happened to me has actually resulted in furthering the preaching of the good news.

Thus it is generally known throughout the Imperial Guard and elsewhere that it is for the sake of Christ that I am in prison,

These latter do it from love for me, for they know that God has put me where I am to defend our right to preach the good news.

But the others are preaching the Christ not sincerely but for their own ends, imagining that they are making my imprisonment harder to bear.

But what difference does it make? All that matters is that, in one way or another, from false motives or honest ones, Christ is being made known; I am glad of that. Yes, and I expect to be glad,

for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, all this will turn out for my highest welfare,

for I eagerly and confidently hope that I shall never disgrace myself but that this time as always hitherto, living or dying, I shall do Christ credit by my unfailing courage.

I am undecided between the two, for I long to depart and be with Christ, for that is far, far better,

I am convinced of this, and so I know that I shall stay on and serve you all, to help you to develop and to be glad in your faith.

Whatever happens, show yourselves citizens worthy of the good news of the Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am kept away and only hear news of you, I may know that you are standing firm with one spirit, one purpose, fighting side by side for faith in the good news.

Take your part in the same struggle that you have seen me engage in and that you hear I am still keeping up.

Have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

That is why God has so greatly exalted him, and given him the name above all others,

so that in the name of Jesus everyone should kneel, in heaven and on earth and in the underworld,

so that you will be blameless and honest, faultless children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted age, in which you appear like stars in a dark world,

I hope, with the help of the Lord Jesus, to send Timothy to you soon, so that I, too, may be cheered by having news about you.

But I feel that I must send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow-laborer, and fellow-soldier, whom you sent to look after my needs.

For he has been longing to see you all, and has been greatly distressed because you heard that he was sick.

So I am all the more eager to send him, so that you may have the pleasure of seeing him again, and I may feel more relieved.

and be known to be united to him, with any uprightness I may have not based on law but coming through faith in Christ??he uprightness that comes from God through faith.

Not that I have secured it yet, or already reached perfection, but I am pressing on to see if I can capture it, because I have been captured by Jesus Christ.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have captured it yet, only, forgetting what is behind me, and straining toward what lies ahead,

Now, brothers, let your minds dwell on what is true, what is worthy, what is right, what is pure, what is amiable, what is kindly??n everything that is excellent or praiseworthy.

Do the things that you learned, received, and heard from me, and that you saw me do. Then God who gives peace will be with you.

Not that I have anything to complain of, for I have learned how to be contented with the condition I am in.

And you at Philippi know as well as I do, that in the early days of the good news, after I left Macedonia, no church but yours went into partnership and opened an account with me.

Not that I want your gifts, but I want you to have the profits that will accumulate to your credit.

That is why, from the day I first heard of it, I have never given up praying for you and asking God to fill you, through full spiritual wisdom and insight, with a clear knowledge of what his will is,

so that the lives you live may be worthy of your Master and wholly pleasing to him, and you may be fruitful in all kinds of good deeds, and may grow into fuller knowledge of God.

for it was through him that everything was created in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen, angelic thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities??ll things were created through him and for him.

In it, by divine appointment, I became a worker, that I might preach among you the message of God in its fulness??26 that secret, hidden from the ages and generations, but now disclosed to those who are consecrated to him,

That is what I am working for, fighting with all the energy with which he so mightily endows me.

that your hearts may be cheered. I want you to be united by love, and to have all the benefit of assured knowledge in coming to know Christ??3 that divine mystery in which all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found.

Take care that nobody exploits you through the pretensions of philosophy, guided by human tradition, following material ways of looking at things, instead of following Christ.

For it is in him that all the fulness of God's nature lives embodied,

That was all only the shadow of something that was to follow; the reality is found in Christ.

"You must not handle," "You must not taste," "You must not touch"??22 referring to things that are all meant to be used up and destroyed? This is to follow mere human rules and regulations.

If, then, you have been raised to life with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are where Christ is, above, seated at God's right hand.

Fix your thoughts on the things that are above, not on those that are on earth.

It is on account of these things that God's anger is coming.

And you once practiced them as others do, when you lived that old earthly life.

and have put on that new self newly made in the likeness of its Creator, to know him fully.

You married women must subordinate yourselves to your husbands, for that is your duty as Christians.

Children, always obey your parents, for that is commendable in Christians.

for you know that it is from him that you are to receive that inheritance which is to be your reward. Think of Christ as the master you are working for.

You who are masters must treat your slaves justly and fairly, and remember that you have a Master too, in heaven.

Pray for me too, that God may give me an opening for the message, and let me tell the secret of Christ on account of which I am kept in prison

Epaphras, one of your own number, a slave of Christ Jesus, wishes to be remembered to you. He is always standing up for you in his prayers that you may stand fast, like men of mature convictions, whatever God's will for you may be.

Remember me to the brothers in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church that meets at her house.

When this letter has been read to you, have it read to the church at Laodicea also, and see that you read the letter that is coming from there.

And tell Archippus, "See that you perform the Christian service you have been assigned."

This farewell is in my own hand, from Paul. Remember that I am in prison. God bless you.

For we know, brothers whom God so loves, that he has chosen you,

so that you set an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Greece.

For the Lord's message has rung out from you not only over Macedonia and Greece, but the story of your belief in God has gone everywhere, so that we never need to mention it.

You know yourselves, brothers, that our visit to you was far from ineffectual.

That was the kind of affection we had for you, which made us ready to share with you not only God's good news but our own lives too, because you were so dear to us.

For you, brothers, followed the example of God's churches in Judea that are in union with Christ Jesus, for you in your turn had to bear the same ill-treatment from your neighbors as they did from the Jews,

try to keep us from speaking to the heathen so that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has overtaken them at last!

and encourage you not to be led astray, any of you, in all these troubles. You know yourselves that this is what we must expect,

for when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were going to have trouble, and it came true, as you know.

That was why, when I could not bear it any longer, I sent to find out about your faith, for I was afraid that the tempter might have tempted you and all our labor might be lost.

But now that Timothy has just come back to me from you, and brought me good news of your faith and love, and told me how kindly you think of me and that you long to see me just as much as I long to see you,

as I pray night and day with intense earnestness that I may see your faces and supply what is lacking in your faith?

so that your hearts may be strong and faultlessly pure in the sight of our God and Father, when our Lord Jesus appears with all his saints!

Now, brothers, we ask and entreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to live as you learned from us that you must live, to please God??s indeed you are doing, only do it more and more.

It is God's will that you should be consecrated, that you abstain from immorality,

that each of you learn to take a wife for himself from pure and honorable motives,

so that you may have the respect of the outsiders, and not be dependent upon anybody.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then by means of Jesus God will bring back with him those who have fallen asleep.

For we can assure you, on the Lord's own authority, that those of us who will still be living when the Lord comes will have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep.

for you yourselves know perfectly well that the Day of the Lord is to come like a thief in the night.

But you are not in darkness, brothers, so that that Day should surprise you like thieves.

who died for us so that whether we are still alive or fall asleep we may live with him.

Take care that none of you ever pays back evil for evil, but always try to treat one another and everybody with kindness.

We always have to thank God for you, brothers, as it is right that we should, because your faith is growing so wonderfully and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

when on that Day he comes to be honored in his people, and wondered at in all who believe in him??ecause our testimony has been confirmed in you.

so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, by the blessing of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

not to let your minds be too easily unsettled or wrought up, by any message of the Spirit or any utterance or letter purporting to be from me, to the effect that the Day of the Lord has already come.

You must not let anyone deceive you at all. For that is not until the rebellion takes place and the embodiment of disobedience makes his appearance??e who is doomed to destruction,

the adversary of every being that is called a god or an object of worship, and so overbearing toward them as to enter God's sanctuary and take his seat there, proclaiming himself to be God??5 do you not remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you this?

So now you know what it is that is holding him back from making his appearance before the appointed time arrives.

so that all who have refused to believe the truth but have preferred disobedience may be condemned.

and called you to it through our preaching of the good news, so that you may share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.