¹ If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions,

² make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;

³ doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself;

⁴ not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.

⁵ Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

⁶ who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,

⁷ but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;

⁸ and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.

⁹ Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name;

¹⁰ that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth,

¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹² So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

¹³ for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

¹⁴ Do all things without murmurings and questionings:

¹⁵ that ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world,

¹⁶ holding forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither labor 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 in the same manner do ye also joy, and rejoice with me.

¹⁹ But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state.

²⁰ For I have no man likeminded, who will care truly for your state.

²¹ For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.

²² But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child serveth a father, so he served with me in furtherance of the gospel.

²³ Him therefore I hope to send forthwith, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me:

²⁴ but I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall come shortly.

²⁵ But I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-worker and fellow-soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need;

²⁶ since he longed after you all, and was sore troubled, because ye had heard that he was sick:

²⁷ for indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow.

²⁸ I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful.

²⁹ Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy; and hold such in honor:

³⁰ because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.