| 1 | In conclusion, my brethren, be joyful in the Lord. For me to give you the same warnings as before is not irksome to me, while so far as you are concerned it is a safe precaution. |
| 2 | Beware of 'the dogs,' the bad workmen, the self-mutilators. |
| 3 | For we are the true circumcision--we who render to God a spiritual worship and make our boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in outward ceremonies: |
| 4 | although I myself might have some excuse for confidence in outward ceremonies. If any one else claims a right to trust in them, far more may I: |
| 5 | circumcised, as I was, on the eighth day, a member of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews; as to the Law a Pharisee; |
| 6 | as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as to the righteousness which comes through Law, blameless. |
| 7 | Yet all that was gain to me--for Christ's sake I have reckoned it loss. |
| 8 | Nay, I even reckon all things as pure loss because of the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And for His sake I have suffered the loss of everything, and reckon it all as mere refuse, in order that I may win Christ and be found in union with Him, |
| 9 | not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the Law, but that which arises from faith in Christ--the righteousness which comes from God through faith. |
| 10 | I long to know Christ and the power which is in His resurrection, and to share in His sufferings and die even as He died; |
| 11 | in the hope that I may attain to the resurrection from among the dead. |
| 12 | I do not say that I have already won the race or have already reached perfection. But I am pressing on, striving to lay hold of the prize for which also Christ has laid hold of me. |
| 13 | Brethren, I do not imagine that I have yet laid hold of it. But this one thing I do--forgetting everything which is past and stretching forward to what lies in front of me, |
| 14 | with my eyes fixed on the goal I push on to secure the prize of God's heavenward call in Christ Jesus. |
| 15 | Therefore let all of us who are mature believers cherish these thoughts; and if in any respect you think differently, that also God will make clear to you. |
| 16 | But whatever be the point that we have already reached, let us persevere in the same course. |
| 17 | Brethren, vie with one another in imitating me, and carefully observe those who follow the example which we have set you. |
| 18 | For there are many whom I have often described to you, and I now even with tears describe them, as being enemies to the Cross of Christ. |
| 19 | Their end is destruction, their bellies are their God, their glory is in their shame, and their minds are devoted to earthly things. |
| 20 | We, however, are free citizens of Heaven, and we are waiting with longing expectation for the coming from Heaven of a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, |
| 21 | who, in the exercise of the power which He has even to subject all things to Himself, will transform this body of our humiliation until it resembles His own glorious body. |