And this I pray: that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment,

and most of the brothers, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, dare [even] more to speak the word without fear.

But to stay on in the flesh [is] more necessary for your sake.

Therefore my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

{More than that}, even consider all [things] to be loss because of the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for the sake of whom I have suffered the loss of all [things], and consider [them] dung, in order that I may gain Christ

because even in Thessalonica {on more than one occasion} you sent for my need.