1 S o now, my Christian brothers, be happy because you belong to Christ. It is not hard for me to write the same things to you. It is good for you.

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe.

2 W atch out for false teachers. Watch out for sinful men. They want you to depend on the religious act of becoming a Jew for your hope.

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the concision:

3 T he act of becoming a Jew has nothing to do with us becoming Christians. We worship God through His Spirit and are proud of Jesus Christ. We have no faith in what we ourselves can do.

for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh:

4 I could have reason to trust in the flesh. If anyone could feel that the flesh could do something for him, I could.

though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more:

5 I went through the religious act of becoming a Jew when I was eight days old. I was born a Jew and came from the family group of Benjamin. I was a Jewish son of Jewish parents. I belonged to the group of the proud religious law-keepers.

circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

6 I followed my religion with all my heart and did everything I could to make it hard for the church. No one could say anything against the way I obeyed the Law. Christ Must Be Lord of Our Lives

as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.

7 B ut I gave up those things that were so important to me for Christ.

Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.

8 E ven more than that, I think of everything as worth nothing. It is so much better to know Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for Him. And I think of these things as worth nothing so that I can have Christ.

Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ,

9 I want to be as one with Him. I could not be right with God by what the Law said I must do. I was made right with God by faith in Christ.

and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith:

10 I want to know Him. I want to have the same power in my life that raised Jesus from the dead. I want to understand and have a share in His sufferings and be like Christ in His death.

that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death;

11 T hen I may be raised up from among the dead.

if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.

12 I do not say that I have received this or have already become perfect. But I keep going on to make that life my own as Christ Jesus made me His own.

Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.

13 N o, Christian brothers, I do not have that life yet. But I do one thing. I forget everything that is behind me and look forward to that which is ahead of me.

Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,

14 M y eyes are on the crown. I want to win the race and get the crown of God’s call from heaven through Christ Jesus.

I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

15 A ll of us who are full-grown Christians should think this way. If you do not think this way, God will show it to you.

Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you:

16 S o let us keep on obeying the same truth we have already been following.

only, whereunto we have attained, by that same rule let us walk.

17 C hristian brothers, live your lives as I have lived mine. Watch those who live as I have taught you to live.

Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them that so walk even as ye have us for an ensample.

18 T here are many whose lives show they hate the cross of Christ. I have told you this before. Now I tell you again with tears in my eyes.

For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:

19 T heir god is their stomach. They take pride in things they should be ashamed of. All they think about are the things of this world. In the end they will be destroyed.

whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

20 B ut we are citizens of heaven. Christ, the One Who saves from the punishment of sin, will be coming down from heaven again. We are waiting for Him to return.

For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

21 H e will change these bodies of ours of the earth and make them new. He will make them like His body of shining-greatness. He has the power to do this because He can make all things obey Him.

who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.