Letters to the Churches

It is a faithful saying. And these things I will have thee affirm constantly, that they who believe in God may be careful to excel in good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law. For they are unprofitable and vain.

A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid:

Knowing that he that is such an one is subverted and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment.

When I shall send to thee Artemas or Tychicus, make haste to come unto me to Nicopolis. For there I have determined to winter.

Send forward Zenas the lawyer and Apollo, with care that nothing be wanting to them.

And let our men also learn to excel in good works for necessary uses: that they be not unfruitful.

All that are with me salute thee. Salute them that love us in the faith. The grace of God be with you all. Amen.

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, a brother: to Philemon, our beloved and fellow labourer,

And to Appia, our dearest sister, and to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church which is in thy house.

Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God, always making a remembrance of thee in my prayers.

Hearing of thy charity and faith, which thou hast in the Lord Jesus and towards all the saints:

That the communication of thy faith may be made evident in the acknowledgment of every good work that is in you in Christ Jesus.

For I have had great joy and consolation in thy charity, because the bowels of the saints have been refreshed by thee, brother.

Wherefore, though I have much confidence in Christ Jesus to command thee that which is to the purpose:

For charity sake I rather beseech, whereas thou art such a one, as Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ.

I beseech thee for my son, whom I have begotten in my bands, Onesimus,

Who hath been heretofore unprofitable to thee but now is profitable both to me and thee:

Whom I have sent back to thee. And do thou receive him as my own bowels.

Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered to me in the bands of the gospel.

But without thy counsel I would do nothing: that thy good deed might not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary.

For perhaps he therefore departed for a season from thee that thou mightest receive him again for ever:

Not now as a servant, but instead of a servant, a most dear brother, especially to me. But how much more to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord?

If therefore thou count me a partner, receive him as myself.