Therefore, my beloved, as you have been obedient always and not simply when I was present, so, now that I am absent, work all the more strenuously at your salvation with reverence and trembling,

for he has been yearning for you all. He has been greatly concerned because you heard he was ill.

Not that I have already attained this or am already perfect, but I press forward to appropriate it, because I have been appropriated myself by Christ Jesus.

I know how to live humbly; I also know how to live in prosperity. I have been initiated into the secret for all sorts and conditions of life, for plenty and for hunger, for prosperity and for privations.