¹ If then there is any exhortation in Christ, if any encouragement from love, if any partaking of the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,

² make my joy full, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, with union of soul cherishing one mind;

³ doing nothing in the spirit of faction, or in the spirit of vain-glory, but in humility esteeming others as better than yourselves;

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

⁵ Yea, let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, being in the form of God, did not regard it as a thing to be grasped at to be on an equality with God,

⁷ but made himself of no consideration, taking the form of a servant, and becoming like men;

⁸ and in what appertained to him appearing as a man, he humbled himself, and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

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

¹⁰ that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and those on earth, and those 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, as ye 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 doubts;

¹⁵ that ye may be blameless and pure, children of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom ye shine as luminaries in the world,

¹⁶ holding forth the word of life, that I may have whereof to boast against the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain, or labor in vain.

¹⁷ But if I am even poured out on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all.

¹⁸ For the same reason, do ye also rejoice, and rejoice with me.

¹⁹ But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I know your state.

²⁰ For I have no one like-minded, who will have a true concern for your state;

²¹ for all of them are seeking their own things, not those of Christ Jesus.

²² But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son serves a father, he served with me for the gospel.

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

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

²⁵ Yet I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labor, and fellow-soldier, but your messenger, and minister to my wants;

²⁶ for he was longing after you all, and was much troubled, because ye heard that he was sick.

²⁷ For indeed he was sick near to death; but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

²⁸ I send him therefore the more speedily, that when ye see him ye may again rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful.

²⁹ Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in honor;

³⁰ because he was near to death on account of the work, hazarding his life to supply what was wanting on your part in the ministration to me.