being confident of this very thing, that he who hath wrought in you the good work will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ:

And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all understanding;

that ye may prove the things that are excellent, in order that ye may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ;

Now I wish you, brethren, to know, that the things which have befallen me have rather conduced to the progress of the gospel;

so that my bonds are manifest in Christ through the whole palace, and all other places;

but the others of love, knowing that I am exposed for the defence of the gospel.

For I know that this shall issue in my salvation through your prayers, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

according to my firm expectation and hope, that I shall be confounded by no event, but that with all boldness, as always hitherto, Christ shall now also be magnified in my body, whether by my life or death.

But if it be his will, that I should live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my travail: and what to chuse I know not.

And being so persuaded, I know that I shall stay and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith;

that your glorying may abound in Christ Jesus for me by my coming again unto you.

Only conduct yourselves worthily as becometh the gospel of Christ; that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul wrestling together in the faith of the gospel;

and not dismayed on any occasion by your adversaries; which is indeed the proof of perdition to them, but of salvation to you, and that from God.

For this favour on the part of Christ is granted you, not only that ye should believe on him, but also that ye should suffer for his sake;

fulfil ye my joy, that ye may be united in sentiment, having the same love, of one soul, of one mind.

that to the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of beings celestial and terrestrial, and infernal;

and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus [is] Messiah, to the glory of God the Father.

that ye may be blameless and harmless, the children of God, inoffensive, in the midst of an untoward and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as luminaries in the world;

holding up the word of life, that I may glory in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, nor laboured in vain.

But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that I also may be refreshed in spirit, when I know your affairs.

But ye have known the trial of him, that, as a son with a father, he hath served with me in the gospel.

But I have confidence in the Lord that I myself shall come shortly.

For indeed he greatly longed after you all, and was very sorry that ye had heard that he had been sick.

For sick indeed he was, nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow.

I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that seeing him once more ye may rejoice, and I be less sorrowful.

Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and honourably treat those that are such:

for in the work of Christ he was nigh unto death indifferent about life, that he might afford me that service which it was not in your power to render me.

Though I too might have confidence in the flesh; if any other man thinks that he may have confidence in the flesh, I may claim more:

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the transcendently excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as offals of ordure, that I may gain Christ,

and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is by the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

that I may know him, and the virtue of his resurrection, and communion with his sufferings, being conformed to his death;

Not that I have already attained, or am now perfect: but I pursue, that I may overtake that for which also by his apprehension of me I am destined by Christ Jesus.

For many walk, whom I have often mentioned to you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:

who shall transform our body of humiliation, that it may be conformed to his body of glory, according to the effectual working of him who is able to subdue even all things to himself.

Now I rejoiced greatly in the Lord, that now once more your thoughtful attention about me hath again sprung up, to which also your mind had been disposed, but ye had not found the opportunity.

Not that I mention this with a view to my indigence: for I have learned in whatever circumstances I am, to be content.

But know also, Philippians, that at my first preaching the gospel, when I went from Macedonia, no church communicated to me in the way of giving and receiving but ye alone.

Not that I am anxious for a gift; but I am anxious to see fruit abounding on your account.

Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren that are with me salute you.