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“You Are to Have the Same Humble Attitude as Messiah Jesus”
1 Therefore, if there is in union with the Messiah any help and strength and encouragement at all, if there is any solace afforded by love, if there is any fellowship with the Spirit, if there is any affection and compassion,
2 then fill my heart with joy by having the same humble attitude, sharing the same love, being united in spirit, setting your minds on the one goal,
3 doing nothing out of selfish ambition or a prideful and exaggerated view of yourselves, but in humility regarding one another as being of higher rank than yourselves,
4 each of you looking out not merely for your own interests, but especially for those of others.
5 You are to have the same humble attitude as Messiah Jesus,
6 who, though being in very nature God,
did not regard his equality with God
as something to be exploited to his own advantage,+
7 but instead gave up his privileges and his glory,
taking on the very nature of a slave,
sharing in the very weakness and mortality of the human race, though without sin.
And having appeared indeed in human form as a real man,
8 he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
9 That is why God exalted him to the place of highest honor and power,
and bestowed on him the name that is above every other name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow,
in the heavens and on the earth and in Sheol,
11 and every tongue openly acknowledge that Jesus the Messiah is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
12 So then, just as you have been obedient, my dear friends, on every occasion—not only when I was with you, but now even more so in my absence—it is with fear and trembling that you are to continually see to your own salvation’s fruitfulness,
13 seeing that the one who is at work inside you bringing about the resolve and the ability to do what pleases him is God.
14 Do all things without complaining or quarreling,
15 so that you may become blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the sky,
16 holding fast to the very word of life. Then I will have something about which to sing in the Day of Messiah, namely, that it wasn’t for nothing that I ran the race, or for nothing that I worked so hard.
17 Yet if I am indeed to go on being poured out like a drink offering accompanying the sacrifice and help flowing from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.
18 In the same way, you, too, should yourselves be glad and rejoice with me.
“I Hope in Union with the Lord Jesus to Send to You, Very Soon, Timothy”
19 Now, I hope in union with the Lord Jesus to send to you, very soon, Timothy, so that I, too, can take courage from the news he brings back of how you are getting along.
20 I have no one else, you see, who cares about you as much as I do, who is so genuine in his concern for your welfare.
21 For when it comes to all the others, it is their own advantage, not the interests and concerns of Jesus the Messiah, that they are pursuing.
22 Timothy’s proven character and reliability, however, you know, how he has served with me in the work of the gospel just like a son with his father.
23 While him, therefore, I hope to send as soon as I see how things are going to turn out for me,
24 I am convinced in union with the Lord that I myself will also be able to make a visit to you soon.
25 I do consider it very important to go ahead and send back to you, however, Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and the messenger you sent to bring help for my needs,
26 because he misses all of you so very much and is distressed because he learned that you had received news of his illness.
27 Indeed, he became so sick that he almost died, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but also on me, sparing me even greater grief and sorrow.
28 It is with special urgency, therefore, that I am sending him, so that upon seeing him you can be glad again, and I, too, have my own anxiety put to rest.
29 Welcome him in union with the Lord with the greatest of joy, therefore, and people like him hold in very high regard,
30 because it was for the work of the Messiah that he nearly died, risking his life to give me the help that all of you gave through him.