2 ¶ Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of charity, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
2 fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same charity, unanimous, minding the one thing.
3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in humility let each esteem others better than themselves,
4 with each one not looking to their own things, but also to the things of others.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, made in the likeness of men,
8 and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. {Gr. stauros – stake}
9 Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth,
11 and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is Lord in the glory of God the Father.
12 ¶ Therefore, my beloved, as ye have always hearkened, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own saving health with fear and trembling.
13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
14 ¶ Do all things without murmurings and doubts,
15 that ye may be blameless and innocent, children of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world,
16 holding fast the word of life, that I may glory in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.
17 And even if I am poured out as an offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.
18 For the same cause ye also have joy and rejoice with me.
19 But I trust 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 one likeminded, who will naturally care for your state.
21 For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.
22 But ye know the proof of him, that as a son with the father, he has served with me in the gospel.
23 Therefore, I hope to send him presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me.
24 But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly.
25 Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labour and fellowsoldier, but your messenger and he that ministered to my needs.
26 For he longed after you all and was full of heaviness, because ye had heard that he had been sick
27 For indeed he was sick near unto 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 sent him, therefore, the more carefully, 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 gladness and esteem such
30 because for the work of the Christ he was near unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.