Greetings from Paul and Timothy

¹Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons:

²Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

³I thank my God every time I remember you.

⁴In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy,

⁵because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now,

⁶being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

⁷It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart. For in my chains and in my defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partners in grace with me.

⁸God is my witness how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

⁹And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,

¹⁰so that you may be able to test and prove what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

¹¹filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Paul’s Trials Advance the Gospel

¹²Now I want you to know, brothers, that my circumstances have actually served to advance the gospel.

¹³As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guardand to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.

¹⁴And most of the brothers, confident in the Lord by my chains, now dare more greatly to speak the wordwithout fear.

¹⁵It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.

¹⁶The latter do so in love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

¹⁷The former, however, preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can add to the distress of my chains.

¹⁸What then is the issue?Just this: that in every way, whether by false motives or true, Christ is preached. And in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,

¹⁹because I know that through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, my distress will turn out for my deliverance.

²⁰I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have complete boldness so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

To Live Is Christ

²¹For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

²²But if I go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. So what shall I choose? I do not know.

²³I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better indeed.

²⁴But it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.

²⁵Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith,

²⁶so that through my coming to you again your exultation in Christ Jesus will resound on account of me.

Worthy of the Gospel

²⁷Nevertheless, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending together as onefor the faith of the gospel,

²⁸without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a clear sign of their destruction but of your salvation, and it is from God.

²⁹For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him,

³⁰since you are encountering the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

Greetings from Paul and Sosthenes

¹Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

²To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

³Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving

⁴I always thank my God for you because of the grace He has given you in Christ Jesus.

⁵For in Him you have been enriched in every way, in all speech and all knowledge,

⁶because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.

⁷Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸He will sustain you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

Unity in the Church

¹⁰I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree together, so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be united in mind and conviction.

¹¹My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.

¹²What I mean is this: Individuals among you are saying, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,”or “I follow Christ.”

¹³Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?

¹⁴I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,

¹⁵so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.

¹⁶Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that I do not remember if I baptized anyone else.

¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

The Message of the Cross

¹⁸For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

¹⁹For it is written:“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

²⁰Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

²¹For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

²²Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom,

²³but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom,and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

Wisdom from God

²⁶Brothers, consider the time of your calling: Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were powerful; not many were of noble birth.

²⁷But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

²⁸He chose the lowly and despised things of the world, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are,

²⁹so that no one may boast in His presence.

³⁰It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God: our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

³¹Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

Greetings from Paul and Timothy

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

²To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

³We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

⁴because we have heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints—

⁵the faith and love proceeding from the hope stored up for you in heaven, of which you have already heard in the word of truth, the gospel

⁶that has come to you.All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood the grace of God.

⁷You learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on ourbehalf,

⁸and who also informed us of your love in the Spirit.

⁹For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

¹⁰so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

¹¹being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have full endurance and patience, and joyfully

¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified youto share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

¹³He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son,

¹⁴in whom we have redemption,the forgiveness of sins.

The Supremacy of the Son

¹⁵The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

¹⁶For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.

¹⁷He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

¹⁸And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence.

¹⁹For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him,

²⁰and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.

²¹Once you were alienated from God and were hostile in your minds, engaging in evil deeds.

²²But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy, unblemished, and blameless in His presence—

²³if indeed you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope of the gospel you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creatureunder heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Paul’s Suffering for the Church

²⁴Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church.

²⁵I became its servant by the commission God gave me to fully proclaim to you the word of God,

²⁶the mystery that was hidden for ages and generations but is now revealed to His saints.

²⁷To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

²⁸We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfectin Christ.

²⁹To this end I also labor, striving with all His energy working powerfully within me.

The Benefits of Wisdom

¹My son, if you accept my wordsand hide my commandments within you,

²if you incline your ear to wisdomand direct your heart to understanding,

³if you truly call out to insightand lift your voice to understanding,

⁴if you seek it like silverand search it out like hidden treasure,

⁵then you will discern the fear of the LORDand discover the knowledge of God.

⁶For the LORD gives wisdom;from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

⁷He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;He is a shield to those who walk with integrity,

⁸to guard the paths of justiceand protect the way of His saints.

⁹Then you will discern righteousnessand justice and equity—every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will enter your heart,and knowledge will delight your soul.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you,and understanding will guard you,

¹²to deliver you from the way of evil,from the man who speaks perversity,

¹³from those who leave the straight pathsto walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴from those who enjoy doing eviland rejoice in the twistedness of evil,

¹⁵whose paths are crookedand whose ways are devious.

¹⁶It will rescue you from the forbidden woman,from the strangerwith seductive words

¹⁷who abandons the partner of her youthand forgets the covenant of her God.

¹⁸For her house sinks down to death,and her tracks to the departed spirits.

¹⁹None who go to her returnor negotiate the paths of life.

²⁰So you will follow in the ways of the good,and keep to the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will inhabit the land,and the blameless will remain in it;

²²but the wicked will be cut off from the land,and the unfaithful will be uprooted.