1. If there is therefore any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tendernesses and mercies,
2. then fulfill my joy, that you may be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind.
3. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.
4. Do not let each man look upon his own things, but each man also on the things of others.
5. For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6. who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
7. but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.
8. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9. Therefore God has highly exalted Him, and has given Him a name which is above every name,
10. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly ones, and of earthly ones, and of ones under the earth;
11. and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, cultivate your own salvation with fear and trembling.
13. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
14. Do all things without murmurings and disputings,
15. so that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. Among these you shine as lights in the world,
16. holding forth the Word of Life, so that I may rejoice with you in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain nor labored in vain.
17. Yea, and if I am offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.
18. And you also rejoice in the same, and rejoice with me.
19. But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly to you, so that I also may be of good comfort when I know your state.
20. For I have no one who is like-minded, who will naturally care for your state.
21. For all seek their own, not the things which are of Jesus Christ.
22. But you know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he has served with me in the gospel.
23. Therefore I hope to send him presently, as soon as I shall see the things about me.
24. But I trust in the Lord that I myself shall also come shortly.
25. Yet I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier, but your messenger and he who ministered to my wants.
26. For he longed after you all and was full of heaviness, because you had heard that he had been sick.
27. For indeed he was sick, coming near death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
28. Therefore I sent him the more eagerly, so that you may rejoice when you see him again, and that I may be the less sorrowful.
29. Therefore receive him in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in honor,
30. because for the work of Christ he was near death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.