| Chapter 2 |
1 |
If then there be any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and compassions, |
2 |
fulfil my joy, that ye may think the same thing, having the same love, joined in soul, thinking one thing; |
3 |
let nothing be in the spirit of strife or vain glory, but, in lowliness of mind, each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves; |
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regarding not each his own qualities, but each those of others also. |
5 |
For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; |
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who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; |
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but emptied himself, taking a bondman`s form, taking his place in the likeness of men; |
8 |
and having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. |
9 |
Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, |
10 |
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal beings, |
11 |
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father`s glory. |
12 |
So that, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, |
13 |
for it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to his good pleasure. |
14 |
Do all things without murmurings and reasonings, |
15 |
that ye may be harmless and simple, irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation; among whom ye appear as lights in the world, |
16 |
holding forth the word of life, so as to be a boast for me in Christ`s day, that I have not run in vain nor laboured in vain. |
17 |
But if also I am poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice in common with you all. |
18 |
In like manner do *ye* also rejoice, and rejoice with me. |
19 |
But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus to you shortly, that *I* also may be refreshed, knowing how ye get on. |
20 |
For I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on. |
21 |
For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ. |
22 |
But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child a father, he has served with me in the work of the glad tidings. |
23 |
Him therefore I hope to send immediately, as soon as I shall see how it goes with me: |
24 |
but I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall soon come; |
25 |
but I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-workman and fellow-soldier, but your messenger and minister to my need, |
26 |
since he had a longing desire after you all, and was distressed because ye had heard that he was sick; |
27 |
for he was also sick close to death, but God had mercy on him, and not indeed on him alone, but also on me, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. |
28 |
I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that seeing him ye might again rejoice, and that *I* might be the less sorrowful. |
29 |
Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such in honour; |
30 |
because for the sake of the work he drew near even to death, venturing his life that he might fill up what lacked in your ministration toward me. |