I am convinced of this, that the one who began a good action among you will bring it to completion by the Day of the Messiah Jesus.

Throughout the whole Praetorian guard and among all the others it has become plain that these chains of mine are for the sake of Christ;

And of this I feel assured, that I shall remain and continue among you all for your advancement and joy in the faith,

so that you may find me fresh cause of exultation in Christ Jesus, because of my presence among you once more.

If there be among you any consolation in Christ, if there be any comfortable love, if there be any fellowship of the spirit, if there be any compassion of mercy:

Have the same attitude among yourselves that was also in the Messiah Jesus:

He appeared among us as a man, and still further humbled himself by submitting even to death--to death on a cross!

Do everything without murmuring or questioning [the providence of God],

that you may become blameless and innocent, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like stars in a dark world,

in the hope of attaining, in some measure, the resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead.

Not that I speak concerning want; for I have learned, among whom I am, to be satisfied with my condition.