1   If then our common life in Christ yields anything to stir the heart, any loving consolation, any sharing of the Spirit, any warmth of affection or compassion, 2   fill up my cup of happiness by thinking and feeling alike, with the same love for one another, the same turn of mind, and a common care for unity. 3   There must be no room for

The apostle and his friends rivalry and personal vanity among you, but you must humbly reckon others better than yourselves. 4   Look to each other's interest and not merely to your own.

5   Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus. ^note 6   For the divine nature was his from the first; yet he did not think to snatch at equality with God, ^note 7   but made himself nothing, assuming the nature of a slave. 8   Bearing the human likeness, revealed in human shape, he humbled himself, and in obedience accepted even death—death on a cross. 9   Therefore God raised him to the heights and bestowed on him the name above all names, 10   that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow—in heaven, on earth, and in the depths—and every tongue confess, 11   ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’, to the glory of God the Father.

12   So you too, my friends, must be obedient, as always; even more, now that I am away, than when I was with you. You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; 13   for it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deed, for his own chosen purpose.

14    15   Do all you have to do without complaint or wrangling. Show yourselves guileless and above reproach, faultless children of God in a warped and crooked generation, in which you shine ^note like stars in a dark world ^note and proffer the word of life. ^note 16   Thus you will be my pride on the Day of Christ, proof that I did not run my race in vain, or work in vain. 17   But if my life-blood is to crown that sacrifice which is the offering up of your faith, I am glad of it, and I share my gladness with you all. 18   Rejoice, you no less than I, and let us share our joy.

19   I hope (under the Lord Jesus) to send Timothy to you soon; it will cheer me to hear news of you. 20   There is no one else here who sees things as I do, and takes ^note a genuine interest in your concerns; they are all bent on their own ends, 21   not on the cause of Christ Jesus. 22   But Timothy's record is known to you: you know that he has been at my side in the service of the Gospel like a son working under his father. 23   Timothy, then, I hope to send as soon as ever I can see how

The apostle and his friends things are going with me; 24   and I am confident, under the Lord, that I shall myself be coming before long.

25   I feel also I must send our brother Epaphroditus, my fellow-worker and comrade, whom you commissioned to minister to my needs. 26   He has been missing all of you sadly, and has been distressed that you heard he was ill. 27   (He was indeed dangerously ill, but God was merciful to him, and merciful no less to me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.) 28   For this reason I am all the more eager to send him, to give you the happiness of seeing him again, and to relieve my sorrow. 29   Welcome him then in the fellowship of the Lord with wholehearted delight. 30   You should honour men like him; in Christ's cause he came near to death, risking his life to render me the service you could not give.

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