Philippians 3
Open in the reader1Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.
2Watch out for those dogs, those workers of evil, those mutilators of the flesh!
3For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in The-Anointed-One He-Who-Is-Saves, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
4though I myself could have such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of He-Strives-with-God, of the tribe of Son-of-the-Right-Hand; a Crosser of Hebrews; as to the teaching, Separated-One;
6as to zeal, persecuting the assembly; as to righteousness in the teaching, faultless.
7But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of The-Anointed-One.
8More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing The-Anointed-One He-Who-Is-Saves my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain The-Anointed-One
9and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the teaching, but that which is through faith in The-Anointed-One, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.
10I want to know The-Anointed-One and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death,
11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which The-Anointed-One He-Who-Is-Saves took hold of me.
13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in The-Anointed-One He-Who-Is-Saves.
15All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view. And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well.
16Nevertheless, we must live up to what we have already attained.
17Join one another in following my example, brothers, and carefully observe those who walk according to the pattern we set for you.
18For as I have often told you before, and now say again even with tears: Many live as enemies of the cross of The-Anointed-One.
19Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things.
20But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord He-Who-Is-Saves The-Anointed-One,
21who, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself, will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.