1 If therefore there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort in love, if any participation of the Spirit, if any affections and compassions,
2 fulfil my joy, that you have the same mind, having the same love, sympathizing with each other, having one opinion.
3 Do nothing in strife or vain glory, but in humility let each esteem others better than himself,
4 and let each consider not his own interests, but also those of others.
6 who being in the form of God thought it not a robbery to be equal with God;
7 but he abased himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man,
8 and being found in form like a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient even till death, and the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore God also highly exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of beings in heaven and in the earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 And so, my beloved, as you always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
13 for God works in you both to will and to work of his good pleasure.
14 Do all things without complainings and disputations,
15 that you may be blameless and sincere, children of God without blame in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as luminaries in the world,
16 holding fast the word of life, for my glorying in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain, nor labor in vain.
17 But if I am even poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and congratulate you all;
18 do you also rejoice with the same joy and congratulate me.
19 But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, that I may be refreshed when I know your affairs.
20 For I have no one like minded who really will care for your interests;
21 for all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.
22 But you know his tried virtue, that as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.
23 Him therefore I hope to send to you as soon as I know how it will be with me;
24 and I hope in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly.
25 But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, the brother and my fellow-laborer and fellow-soldier, but your apostle and servant of my need,
26 for he greatly desired you all and was anxious, because you heard that he was sick.
27 For indeed he was sick nigh to death; but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
28 I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that seeing him again you may rejoice and I be less sorrowful.
29 Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and have such in estimation,
30 because on account of the work he was nigh to death, not having consulted properly for his life, that he might fully supply your lack of service to me.