11 Make yourselves imitators of God as beloved children, and act in love; as Christ loved you and gave himself as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God for your sake.
Let lechery and every kind of immorality or greed be, as befits saints, not even mentioned among you; avoid also indecent silly facile talk, which is unbecoming. You should rather be giving thanks. For you know well that any lecherous or vicious or greedy person, an idol worshipper, that is, has no share in the Kingdom of the Christ and God.
Let no one deceive you with empty talk. Through this, the anger of God comes against the sons of disobedience. Have nothing to do with these. Once you were darkness, now you are light, through the Lord. Conduct yourselves as children of light, for what issues from light is always goodness and righteousness, and truth. Try to determine what is well pleasing to the Lord; and have no part in the barren works of darkness, but rather expose them, for the things that are done in secret by those people are shameful even to speak of; but everything that is exposed by the light is illuminated, for everything that is illuminated is light. Therefore scripture says: Sleeper, awake, and rise from the dead, and the Christ will give you light.
So watch your behavior carefully, like wise people, not foolish ones, making the most of your time, because these are evil days. Therefore do not be thoughtless but study to know the Lord's will; and do not get ^^nk on wine, which means dissipation, but fill yourselves with the Spirit, talking to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music for the Lord in your hearts, always giving thanks for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and subordinating yourselves to each other in awe of Christ. Wives should subordinate themselves to their own husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as the Christ is the head of the church, the very savior of the body. But as the church is subordinate to the Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her sake, to sanctify her by washing her clean with water in the word, so as to set the church next to himself in glory, with no spot or wrinkle or anything of the sort upon her, but to be holy and without flaw. Thus also husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. One who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but one nourishes it and cherishes it, as the Christ does with the church, because we are parts of his own body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and the two of them will be one flesh. This is a great mystery; I ^ speaking of Christ and the church; but you also should each one of you love his own wife as he does himself, and the wife should be in awe of her husband.
Children, be obedient to your parents; it is right to do so. Honor your father and mother, for this is the first commandment, with the promise: That so it may be well with you, and you will live long upon the earth. And you, fathers, do not try your children's patience, but raise them in the training and precepts of the Lord.
And you, slaves, obey your human masters as you obey the Christ, with fear and trembling and in simplicity of heart, not with service to catch the eye and please people, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God, doing slave work with good will from the heart, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that everyone who does what is good will receive good from the Lord, whether he be slave or free. And you, masters, do likewise toward them, sparing your threats, knowing that their master and yours also is in heaven, and that there is no discr^aination with him.
Lastly, strengthen yourselves in the Lord and in the supremacy of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the treacherous attacks of the devil; because ours is no struggle against flesh and blood, but against the realms, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spirits of evil in heaven. Therefore assume the full armor of God so that you can oppose them on this evil day and, overcoming all, stand firm. Take your stand then, belted around the waist with truth, wearing the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the boots of the gospel of peace, over all holding up the shield of faith with which you will be able to put out all the burning arrows of the Evil One. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Do this with all prayer and entreaty, praying in the spirit on every occasion. To this end be wakeful with full endurance, and with prayers for all the saints. And pray for me, that the words may come when I open my mouth, to make known boldly the mystery of the gospel whose ambassador, in chains, I am; that I may be able to speak boldly, as I ought to do.
And so that you also will know about me, and how I am faring, Tychicus will tell you everything; my beloved brother and trusted helper in the Lord, whom I send you for this very purpose, so that you may learn about us, and so that he may comfort your hearts.
Peace to the brothers, and love, with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in his immortality.
The Letter to the Philippians
1PAUL AND TIMOTHY, SLAVES OF Christ Jesus, to aU the saints of Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, together with their bishops and deacons: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God for you every time I mention you in my prayers, in every one of my prayers for all of you. I make my prayer with joy, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now; being confident that he who began the good work among you will go on perfecting it until the Day of Jesus Christ. So it is right for me to feel thus about all of you, because you hold me in your hearts, and during my imprisonment and my defense of myself and confirmation of the gospel you have shared in grace with me, all of you. As God is my witness, I long for you with the love of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may grow more and more in understanding and all perception, so that you can determine what is right and wrong; so that you may be pure and blameless for the Day of Christ, fulfilling the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
I wish you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has gone toward the advancement of the gospel; so my imprisonment for Christ has become well known in the whole praetorian camp and to everyone else; and most of our brothers, trusting in the Lord, begin to preach the word of God the more fearlessly because of my imprisonment. Some preach the Christ in a spirit of envy and contentiousness, others in good will; these with love, knowing that I lie in prison because of my defense of the gospel; but the others proclaim the Christ out of spite, not sincerely, thinking to cause trouble through my bondage. But what of that? In one way or another, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is being proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. And I shall continue to rejoice, for I know that this will turn out to be salvation for me, through your prayers and the support of the spirit of Jesus Christ; all this as I hope and eagerly expect that I shall not be put to shame in any way, but that with full freedom of speech, as now and always, Christ will be exalted in this body of mine, whether in life or death.
For me, Christ is life, and to die is a gain. But what if living in the flesh brings some good from the effort? I do not know which to choose. I am caught between the two. My desire is to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is much better; but my staying in the flesh is more useful, because of you. And this I confidently know, that I will stay and stand by all of you for the advancement of your faith and your joy in it, so that your pride in me may abound in Christ Jesus when I am with you once again.
Only live lives worthy of the gospel of the Christ, so that whether I come and see you or hear about you in my absence, I shall know that you are enduring in a single spirit, in a single feeling striving to help the belief in the gospel, in no way frightened by your adversaries. This is the proof of destruction for them and salvation for you, and it
comes from God: that with respect to Christ you were given the privilege not only of believing in him but of suffering for him. Your contest is the same one that you have seen as mine, and now hear of as mine.
If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation in love, any community of spirit, any compassion and feelings of pity, make my joy complete by being unanimous, sharing the same love, harmonious, one in purpose; without emulation or vanity but in your modesty always thinking that others among you are better than yourselves; not looking each for his own interest but every one for the rest. Keep this purpose in yourselves, one which is also in Christ Jesus. He was in the form of God, but did not think to seize on the right to be equal to God, but he stripped himself by taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of a human being; and being found in the guise of a human being, he humiliated himself and was obedient to the death, death on the cross. Therefore God exalted him and graced him with the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess, to the glory of God the Father, that the Lord is Jesus Christ.
So, my beloved people, as you have always been obedient, continue to work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, not only when I am with you but now all the more by far in my absence. For it is God who causes you to wish and to act for the sake of his good will. Do everything without mutterings and disputations, so that you may be blameless and pure, flawless children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, ^ong whom you shine in the world like stars by holding to the word of life, to make me proud on the Day of Christ because I did not my course in vain or labor in vain. But even if I am being offered up to the sacrificial service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you. Do you likewise rejoice, and share your joy with me.
I hope, if the Lord Jesus is willing, to send Timothy to you soon, so that I myself may le^ how things are with you, and take heart. I have here not one with a spirit like his, who would be honestly concerned about you; they are all after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. You know how Timothy has proved himself, you know how like a son with his father he has toiled with me for the gospel. So I hope to send as soon as I can find out what my own future is; and I trust in the Lord that I myself shall come to you soon.
I also thought it necessary to send Epaphroditus to you; my brother and helper and fellow soldier sent by you as an emissary to minister to my needs; since he has been longing to see you and was concerned because you heard that he had been sick. And indeed he was sick, almost to the point of death, but God took pity on him; not only on him, but also on me, so that I should not have one grief on top of another. Thus I send him the more urgently, so that you may see him and be happy again, and I too may be the less troubled. Welcome him, then, with all joy, in the Lord's name, and prize people like him, because in doing the Lord's work he came very close to death, risking his life in order to fill the need you felt to have someone helping me.
For the rest, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. But I have no hesitation in writing you the same thing once again, and it is safe, as regards you.
Beware of the dogs, beware of evil practitioners, beware of mutilation. It is we who are the circumcised, we who serve the spirit of God and take pride in Christ Jesus and do not put our confidence in the flesh —although I myself do have reason for confidence in the flesh also. Even if another man may think he has reason for confidence in the flesh, yet I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in law a Pharisee, in zeal, a persecutor of the church, in righteousness according to the law, without fault. But all those things which had been gains for me I now count as loss, because of the Christ. I do then count everything else as loss because of the greater value of knowing of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I was deprived of everything; and I count it all as garbage if so I may gain Christ and be found in him, not keeping my righteousness which came from the law but that which came through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God which rests on faith; from knowing him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings, conforming myself to his death, so as somehow to arrive at the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have already got it or am already made perfect, but I pursue it, trying to overtake it, as I was overtaken by Christ. My brothers, I do not count myself as one who has caught it yet, but I do only one thing: forgetting what is behind me and straining on toward what is ahead of me, I pursue my objective, the prize, which is to be summoned aloft by God with Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature be so minded; and if you think otherwise on any point, God will make that also clear to you; only let us stand fast at the place we have already reached.
Join in following my example, brothers, and since you have us for a model, observe those who conduct themselves as I do. For there are many people about, of whom I have spoken to you often and now, tearfully, speak of them again: the enemies of the cross of the Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly and whose glory is in their shamefulness, whose minds are on earthly things. But we have our city in heaven, from which we also await our savior the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transfigure the body of our lowliness to conform to the body of his glory, through the activity of his power and because all things are subject to him.
So, my brothers, longed for, my joy and my crown, be thus steadfast in the Lord, my dear ones. I implore Eu- odia and I implore Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true yoke-fellow, come to their aid; in my evangelism they strove along with me, together with Clement and the rest of my helpers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; I say it again, rejoice. May your goodness be made knownwn to all men. The Lord is near; never be anxious, but in every prayer and entreaty let your requests be communicated with thanksgiving to God; and the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, all things that are true, that are honorable, that are just, that are pure, that are lovely, that are admirable; if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy; think upon these things. And all that you have ever le^ed and taken over and heard and seen in me, so do; and the God of peace will be with you.
I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that your concern for me has flowered once again; after the time when you were concerned, but had no opportunity to help. I do not speak about needing help, since I have learned how to be self- sufficient in whatever circumstances I may be. I know how to do without and how to have plenty; anywhere and in anything I have been initiated into how to be full, how to be hungry, to have more than enough and to have not enough. I have strength for everything through him who fortifies me.
Still you did well to share my suffering with me. And, Philippians, you yourselves know that, in the early time of my mission when I had left Macedonia, not one other church shared in my gains and losses: only you; and that even when I was in Thessalonica once and then again you sent me what I needed. Not that I ask for the gift but what I do ask is that the excess profit be credited to you. I am paid in full, and more; I ^ fully rewarded in receiving from Epaphroditus the gift from you, a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God will fill every need that you have through his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Glory be to our God and Father forever and ever. Amen.
Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send you greetings. All the saints send you greetings, especially those of Caesar's household.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
The Letter to the Colossians
IPAUL, THE APOSTLE OF CHRIST JESUS by the will of God, with Timothy our brother; to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ who are in Colos- sae: grace to you and peace, from God our Father.
In a
ll our prayers to God the Father of our Lord Jesus we give thanks for you, since we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints, because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, hope of which you heard before in the word of truth in the gospel which is present among you; the gospel which grows and bears fruit in all the world, as it does among you, since the day when you heard it and truly acknowledged the grace of God; as you le^ed it from Epaphras our beloved fellow slave, who acts for us as a trusted minister of the Christ, and who told us of the love you have in the Spirit. Therefore we also, since the day when we heard about you, never cease from praying for you. We pray that you may be fulfilled in your understanding of his will, in full wisdom and spiritual comprehension; so as to act in a manner worthy of the Lord and always pleasing to him, productive in every good work and increasing in your understanding of God; empowered with every power, by the supremacy of his glory, to be always steadfast and joyfully enduring, thankful to the father who made you fit for your share in the fortune of the saints, in the light. It was he who rescued us from the power of darkness, and removed us to the Kingdom of the son of his love, where we find our redemption, the remission of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation, because in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or realms or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. And he is before all things and all things come together in him, and he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, first-born from the dead, to be first himself in all things, because all fulfillment has been well pleased to reside in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, establishing peace by the blood of his cross; whether it be the things on earth or the things in heaven. And as for you, who were once estranged and hostile in your minds with your wicked doings, he has now reconciled you in his physical body by his death, so as to bring you, holy and blameless and unimpeachable, into his presence; provided that you remain firm-founded and steady in your faith, not shaken from your hope in the gospel you have heard, the gospel preached in all creation under heaven, the gospel of which I, Paul, have been made the minister.
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