Letters to the Churches

so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world

as you hold forth the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.

But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.

So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I learn how you are doing.

I have nobody else like him who will genuinely care for your needs.

For all the others look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

But you know Timothy’s proven worth, that as a child with his father he has served with me to advance the gospel.

So I hope to send him as soon as I see what happens with me.

And I trust in the Lord that I myself will come soon.

But I thought it necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my needs.

For he has been longing for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.

He was sick indeed, nearly unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.

Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may rejoice, and I may be less anxious.

Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him,

because he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for your deficit of service to me.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

Watch out for those dogs, those workers of evil, those mutilators of the flesh!

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—

though I myself could have such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more:

circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;

as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.

But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.