and that when I come back my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn over many who have kept on in their old sins and have never repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality in which they have indulged.

Those who have kept on in their old sins and all the rest I have warned, and I warn them now while I am still away, as I did on my second visit, that if I come back I will spare nobody??3 since you demand proof that Christ really speaks through me. He is not weak in dealing with you. On the contrary, right among you he exhibits his power.

That is why I write this while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be harsh in my use of the authority the Lord has given me, for it was to build you up, not to pull you down.

But even if we or an angel from heaven preach to you good news that contradicts the good news we have preached to you, a curse upon him!

We have said it before, and I repeat it now??f anyone is preaching to you good news that contradicts the good news you have already received, a curse upon him!

You have heard of my former conduct when I was attached to the Jewish religion??ow furiously I used to persecute the church of God and ravage it,

It was in obedience to a revelation that I went. I laid before them the good news that I preach to the heathen, presenting it privately to the leaders, for fear my efforts might be or might have been futile.

Only, we were to remember the poor, and that I have taken pains to do.

If through our efforts to be made upright through Christ, we have ourselves been proved as much "sinners" as the heathen, does that make Christ encourage sin? By no means.

For it is through the Law that I have become dead to the Law, so that I may live for God.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me. The life I am now living in the body I am living by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Have you gone through so much, all for nothing???f it really is for nothing!

That no one is accepted as upright by God for obeying the Law is evident because the upright will have life because of his faith,

Is the Law then contrary to God's promises? By no means. For if a law had been given that could have brought life, uprightness would really have come through law.

But the Scripture describes all mankind as the prisoners of sin, so that the promised blessing might on the ground of faith in Jesus Christ be given to those who have faith.

For all of you who have been baptized into union with Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

but now that you know God, or rather have come to be known by him, how can you turn back to the old, crude notions, so poor and weak, and wish to become slaves to them again?

and yet what must have tried you in my physical condition, you did not scorn and despise, but you welcomed me like an angel of God, like Christ Jesus himself.

What has become of that satisfaction of yours? For I can bear witness that you would have torn out your very eyes, if you could, and given them to me!

Have I turned into an enemy to you, by telling you the truth?

These men are making much of you, but not with honorable intentions. They want to shut you out, so that you will have to make much of them.

For the Scripture says, "Rejoice, childless woman, who bear no children, Break into shouting, you who have no birth pains! For the desolate woman has more children than the married one!"

You people who propose to be made upright by law have finished with Christ; you have lost your hold upon God's favor.

I am confident in the Lord that you will not take a different view. The man who is unsettling you will have to pay the penalty for it, no matter who he is.

I wish the people who are upsetting you would go on, and have themselves emasculated!

For you, brothers, have been called to freedom; only do not make your freedom an excuse for the physical, but in love be slaves to one another.

envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you as I did before that people who do such things will have no share in the Kingdom of God.

Those who belong to Jesus the Christ have crucified the physical nature with its propensities and cravings.

For everyone will have to carry his own load.

So then whenever we have an opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially to those who belong to the family of the faith.

But I never want to boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, on which the world has been crucified to me and I have been to the world.

It is through union with him and through his blood that we have been delivered and our offenses forgiven,

and in arranging, when the time should have fully come, that everything in heaven and on earth should be unified in Christ??11 the Christ through whom it is our lot to have been predestined by the design of him who in everything carries out the purpose of his will,

You also have heard the message of the truth, the good news of your salvation, and believed in him, and through union with him you have been marked with the seal of the holy Spirit that was promised,

This is why I, for my part, since I have heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus that prevails among you and among all God's people,

he made us, dead as we were through our offenses, live again with the Christ. It is by his mercy that you have been saved.

For it is by his mercy that you have been saved through faith. It is not by your own action, it is the gift of God.

But now through your union with Christ Jesus you who were once far away have through the blood of Christ been brought near.

This is why I, Paul, whom Jesus the Christ has made a prisoner for the sake of you heathen??2 if at least you have heard how I dealt with the mercy of God that was given me for you,

and how the secret was made known to me by revelation, as I have just briefly written.

As you read that, you will be able to understand the insight I have into the secret of the Christ

Through union with him and through faith in him, we have courage to approach God with confidence.

So I, the prisoner for the Lord's sake, appeal to you to live lives worthy of the summons you have received;

for they have become callous, and abandoned themselves to sensuality, greedily practicing every kind of vice.

That is not the way you have been taught what Christ means,

at least if you have really become acquainted with him and been instructed in him, and in union with him have been taught the truth as it is found in Jesus.

The man who stole must not steal any more; he must work with his hands at honest toil instead, so as to have something to share with those who are in need.

You must not offend God's holy Spirit, with which you have been marked for the Day of Redemption.

For you may be sure that no one who is immoral, or greedy for gain (for that is idolatry) can have any share in the Kingdom of Christ and God.

Therefore have nothing to do with them.

Have nothing to do with the profitless doings of the darkness; expose them instead.

"You must honor your father and mother"??hat is the first commandment accompanied with a promise??3 "so that you may prosper and have a long life on earth."

For we have to struggle, not with enemies of flesh and blood, but with the hierarchies, the authorities, the master-spirits of this dark world, the spirit-forces of evil on high.

for the sake of which I am an envoy, and in prison. Pray that, when I tell it, I may have the courage to speak as I ought.

God's blessing be with all who have an unfailing love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

And I have a right to feel in this way about you all, because both when I am in prison and when I am defending and vindicating our right to preach the good news, I have you in my heart as all sharing that privilege with me.

so that you may have a sense of what is vital, and may be men of transparent character and blameless life, in preparation for the Day of Christ,

and so most of the Christian brothers have been exceedingly encouraged by my example to declare God's message without any fear of the consequences.

For you have been granted the privilege not only of trusting in Christ but of suffering for him.

Take your part in the same struggle that you have seen me engage in and that you hear I am still keeping up.

Have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

So, my dear friends, as you have always been obedient, with reverence and awe make every effort to insure your salvation, not simply as though I were with you, but all the more because I am away.

offering men the message of life. Then I will have reason to boast of you on the Day of Christ, because my exertion and labor have not been wasted.

Even if my life is to be poured out as a libation as you offer your faith in a service of sacrifice to God, I am glad to have it so, and I congratulate you upon it,

For I have no one like him who would take such a real interest in you.

So I am all the more eager to send him, so that you may have the pleasure of seeing him again, and I may feel more relieved.

for he came near dying for the Lord's work, and risked his life to make up for what was lacking in the service you have done me.

But for the sake of Christ I have come to count my former gains as loss.

Why, I count everything as loss compared with the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have lost everything, and think it rubbish, in order to gain Christ

and be known to be united to him, with any uprightness I may have not based on law but coming through faith in Christ??he uprightness that comes from God through faith.

Not that I have secured it yet, or already reached perfection, but I am pressing on to see if I can capture it, because I have been captured by Jesus Christ.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have captured it yet, only, forgetting what is behind me, and straining toward what lies ahead,

Let as many of us therefore as are mature have this attitude. If you have any different attitude, God will make this clear to you.

Only we must live up to what we have already attained.

Follow my example, brothers, all of you, and notice those who follow the pattern we have set you.

For there are many who live, as I have often told you, and tell you now with tears, like enemies of the cross of Christ.

Have no anxiety about anything, but make all your wants known to God in prayer and entreaty, and with thanksgiving.

I was very glad, as a Christian, to have your interest in me revive again after so long; for you have always been interested, but you have had no opportunity to show it.

Not that I have anything to complain of, for I have learned how to be contented with the condition I am in.

I know how to live humbly and I know how to enjoy plenty. I have learned the secret, in any and all conditions, of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of going without.

Not that I want your gifts, but I want you to have the profits that will accumulate to your credit.

You have paid me in full, and more too. I am fully supplied with what I have received from you through Epaphroditus. It is like fragrant incense, just such a sacrifice as God welcomes and approves.

for what we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have for all God's people,

That is why, from the day I first heard of it, I have never given up praying for you and asking God to fill you, through full spiritual wisdom and insight, with a clear knowledge of what his will is,

by whom we have been ransomed from captivity through having our sins forgiven.

that your hearts may be cheered. I want you to be united by love, and to have all the benefit of assured knowledge in coming to know Christ??3 that divine mystery in which all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found.

Through your relation to him you have received not a physical circumcision, but a circumcision effected by Christ, in stripping you of your material nature,

If you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things, why do you act as though you still belonged to the world, and submit to rules like

If, then, you have been raised to life with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are where Christ is, above, seated at God's right hand.

For you have died, and your life now lies hidden with Christ in God.

You must not lie to one another. For you have stripped off your old self with its ways

and have put on that new self newly made in the likeness of its Creator, to know him fully.

Let the ruling principle in your hearts be Christ's peace, for in becoming members of one body you have been called under its sway. And you must be thankful.

And whatever you have to say or do, do it all as followers of the Lord Jesus, and offer your thanksgiving to God the Father through him.

You who are masters must treat your slaves justly and fairly, and remember that you have a Master too, in heaven.

Aristarchus, my fellow-prisoner, wishes to be remembered to you, and so does Barnabas' cousin Mark. (About him you have had instructions; if he comes to see you, make him welcome.)

So also does Jesus who is called Justus. They are the only ones among the converts from Judaism who have worked with me for the reign of God who have proved a comfort to me.

When this letter has been read to you, have it read to the church at Laodicea also, and see that you read the letter that is coming from there.

And tell Archippus, "See that you perform the Christian service you have been assigned."

We never sought praise from men, either from you or anyone else, though as Christ's apostles we might have stood on our dignity.