Philippians 1-4

Worldwide English (New Testament)

1 We, Paul and Timothy, are servants of Christ Jesus. We send greetings to all of God's people who belong to Christ Jesus and who live in the city of Philippi. We send greetings to the leaders of the church people and those who have been chosen to help them.

² May the loving kindness of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

³ Every time I think of you I thank God for you.

⁴ I have joy in my heart every time I ask God to help you.

⁵ I thank God for the joy we share in telling the good news from the very first day until now.

⁶ God began to do a good work in you. And I am sure that he will keep on doing it until he has finished it. He will keep on until the day Jesus Christ comes again.

⁷ I have a right to feel this way about you all because I love you very much. God is good to me and you all share in this goodness. You share in my troubles in prison. You share in my work of staying true to the good news of Jesus.

⁸ I love you all as Jesus Christ loves you. God knows that what I say is true.

¹⁰ When I talk to God I ask that you may have more and more love. I ask him that you will also know and understand, so that you will be able to see what things are right. I want you to be clean with nothing wrong in you when Jesus Christ comes back.

¹¹ I want you to be doing right by the help of Jesus Christ. That will make people praise God and will show how great he is.

¹² My brothers, I want you to know that what has happened to me has made more people know about the good news.

¹³ All the soldiers here and all the other people know that I am in prison because of Christ.

¹⁴ Because I am in prison, most of my Christian brothers are stronger for the Lord. They are strong in the faith now and they are not afraid to tell God's good news about Jesus Christ.

¹⁵ Some of them tell about Christ because they are jealous. They want to prove they are better than me. Some of them tell about Christ because they want to help me.

¹⁶ The first ones do it because they want to prove they are better than I am. They do not have a good reason. But they think they will make trouble for me while I am in prison.

¹⁷ These last ones do it because they love me. They know that I am here to speak for the good news.

¹⁸ But it does not matter. Every way, in the wrong way or in the right way, Christ is talked about. I will be glad because of that.

¹⁹ Yes, I will keep on being glad about it. I know that you will talk to God about me, and I know that the Spirit of Jesus Christ will help me. So I know that things will work out for me to be free.

²⁰ I look forward to this very much and hope that I will not be ashamed at all. But I want to be very strong. I want to bring honour to Christ now as I always have. I can do this if I live or die.

²¹ All I live for is Christ, and to die would give me more blessing.

²² If I keep on living, then I will keep on doing my good work. I really do not know which I want more, to live or to die.

²³ I am caught between these two. I want to die and go to be with Christ, which would be very much better.

²⁴ But you need me more to stay here.

²⁵ Because I am sure of this, I know that I will stay on and be here with you all. That will help you to be better Christians and happy ones.

²⁶ Then you will be even more happy about what Christ Jesus has done for me because I have come back to you.

²⁷ So whatever happens, live as people who believe the good news of Christ should live. Then, if I come and see you, or if I am away and hear about you, you will be standing strong together in one spirit. With one mind you will be working hard together for the good news.

²⁸ Do not fear in any way those who are working against you. It is God who shows them they are lost and you are saved.

²⁹ God has given you a special gift. You can not only believe in Christ but also suffer for him.

³⁰ You have the same trouble which you saw me have. And you hear now that I still have it.

2 Does Christ speak to you? Does love call to you? Do you have a part in the Holy Spirit? Do you have any love and care for others?

² Then make me very, very happy. Live in happiness with one another. Have the same love for each other. Think the same way. Agree together about things. All have one purpose in mind.

³ Do not try to prove you are better than others. Do not be proud of yourselves, but be humble. Think of other people as being better than yourselves.

⁴ Each one of you should not think only about himself, but about other people also.

⁵ Think the same way Jesus Christ thought.

⁶ He was in every way like God. Yet he did not think that being equal to God was something he must hold on to.

⁷ He gave this up and became a servant. He was born a baby.

⁸ And when he was a man, he was humble. He was even willing to die, yes, to die on a cross.

⁹ That is why God has made him very great. God has given him a name above every name.

¹⁰ Everyone in heaven, everyone on earth, and everyone under the earth will kneel before the name of Jesus.

¹¹ Everyone will admit that Jesus Christ is Lord. They will praise God the Father for this.

¹² My dear people, you have always obeyed me. God has saved you from wrong ways. Now show this by the good things that you do. You must live that way, not only when I am with you, but much more now that I am not with you. Think of how wrong it will be if you do not. Try hard to work out how to do it.

¹³ For God is at work in you. He helps you want to do it. And he helps you do what he wants you to do.

¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling or making trouble.

¹⁵ In that way you will be completely good. No one will be able to say anything wrong about you. You will be God's good children living amongst bad people. Among them you will shine like lights in the world.

¹⁶ You will have the message of life for them. I will be proud of you when Christ comes. My work and trouble will not be for nothing.

¹⁷ The life you live because you believe in God is like a sacrifice. Even if I am killed, it will be like wine which people pour on a sacrifice. I am happy to do this for you, and I am happy about you.

¹⁸ In the same way you must be happy. And you must be happy about me.

¹⁹ I hope the Lord Jesus will let me send Timothy to you soon. I will be glad to hear about you.

²⁰ I have no one like Timothy. He is troubled to know about you.

²¹ All the other people think only of themselves and not of Jesus Christ.

²² But you know what a good man Timothy is. You know that he has worked with me in telling the good news. He has worked just as a son works with his father.

²³ So I hope to send him to you as soon as I see what happens to me.

²⁴ And I trust that the Lord will let me come to you soon myself.

²⁵ I thought I must send Epaphroditus, our Christian brother, back to you. He has worked with me and has also been a soldier of Christ with me. He was your messenger and he brought your gift for my needs.

²⁶ I am sending him back because he has been lonely without you all. And his heart has been troubled because you heard that he was sick.

²⁷ He was very sick! He almost died! But God was kind to him. He was not only kind to him, but also to me. God did not let me have one trouble after another.

²⁸ I want even more to send him to you so that you will be happy when you see him again. And I will not be so troubled any more.

²⁹ So receive him with much joy because he is a Christian brother. Give respect to men like him.

³⁰ He almost died doing the work of Christ. You wished to help me, but you could not come. He came instead. He was willing to put his life in danger in order to help me.

3 Now, my brothers, I say be glad for what the Lord has done for you. It is not hard for me to write the same things to you over and over. And it is good for you.

² Watch out for those teachers who are like dogs. Watch out for those teachers who do wrong things. And watch out for those teachers who want you to have the mark of a Jew cut in your bodies.

³ We have God's Spirit and we worship God in the Spirit. So we are the people who have the mark of God. Christ Jesus is our reason for being joyful. We do not trust in having a mark cut in our bodies.

⁴ And yet I could trust in things about myself if I wanted to. If any other man thinks that he has something about himself to trust in, I have more things.

⁵ I had the mark of a Jew cut in my body when I was eight days old. I was born of the people of Israel. I belong to the family of Benjamin, so I was born a true Jew. I was a Pharisee, so I obeyed the Jewish law very carefully.

⁶ I was so full of my own ideas that I sent Christians to prison. But I was a good man in the way the Jewish law calls a man good.

⁷ But all these things that might have helped me, I call them all nothing, because of Christ.

⁸ Yes, I call them all nothing, because to know Christ Jesus my Lord is much better. It is for his sake that I have given them all up and call them just dirt. I have lost them but gained Christ.

⁹ I do it so that I will belong to him. I do not want to be called good because of the Jewish law. But I want to be made good by believing in Christ. I want to be put right with God through faith alone.

¹⁰ I want to know Christ. I want to know the power that raised him from death. I want to have a part in his trouble. I want to be like him in his death.

¹¹ Then I hope to be raised from death.

¹² I do not mean to say that I have got there yet, or that I am perfect yet. But I am trying hard to get there, because that is why Christ saved me.

¹³ My brothers, I do not yet think that I have got all the things of Christ. But there is one thing that I am doing. I forget what is behind me and reach out to what is ahead of me.

¹⁴ Like a man running a race, I try hard to reach the line so that I will receive the prize. Because we belong to Christ Jesus, God is calling us to receive this prize that he has for us in heaven.

¹⁵ All of us who are grown-up Christians should feel this way. And if you do not think this way, God will show you the right way.

¹⁶ But no matter how far we have gone, we must keep on going that way. And let us do it together, having the same things in mind.

¹⁷ My brothers, do as I do, all of you. Look at the people who live the way we have lived.

¹⁸ Many people live as if they hated the cross of Christ. I have often told you about them, and I tell you now with tears.

¹⁹ They will be lost for ever. Their belly is the god they worship. They boast about things they should be ashamed of. They think only about things of this world.

²⁰ But we belong to heaven. And we are waiting for the Saviour to come from heaven. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

²¹ He will change our body which was made for this world. He will make it like his own wonderful body. He will do this by his power to make all things obey him.

4 And so, my brothers, I love you and want very much to be with you. I am very happy about you. And you are like a prize I have won in a race. My dear people, keep on standing firm and strong in the Lord.

² I beg Euodia and Syntyche to agree to work together. I ask them to be of the same mind in the Lord.

³ I beg you, my real helper, to help these women. They worked hard with me in telling the good news. Clement and my other helpers worked hard with me too. Their names are in God's Book of Life.

⁴ Always be glad for what the Lord has done, I will say it again, be glad.

⁵ Let everyone know that you think kindly of others before yourselves. The Lord is near.

⁶ Do not worry about anything. Talk to God about everything. Thank him for what you have. Ask him for what you need.

⁷ Then God will give you peace, a peace which is too wonderful to understand. That peace will keep your hearts and minds safe as you trust in Christ Jesus.

⁸ Here, my brothers, are some things I want you to think about. Think about things that are true, honest, right, clean and pure, things that are lovely, and things that are good to talk about. If they are good, and if they bring praise to God, think about these things.

⁹ I taught you, and you learned things from me. You heard the things I said, and you saw the things I did. Do these same things yourselves. Then God who gives peace will be with you.

¹⁰ The Lord made me very happy to know that you were thinking about me again. Yes, I know you were thinking of me before, but you had no way to help me.

¹¹ I do not mean that I needed it. I have learned to be satisfied with what I have. I am happy with whatever happens to me.

¹² I know how to live when I am poor, and I know how to live when I am rich. No matter how things are, I have learned how to live: when I have plenty of food, or when I am hungry; when I have more things than I need, and when I do not have enough.

¹³ I can do all things because Christ gives me strength.

¹⁴ But you were kind to help me when I was in trouble.

¹⁵ When I first told the good news after I left the country of Macedonia, you were the only church people who helped me. You sent me money to pay my expenses.

¹⁶ Even when I was in the city of Thessalonica, you sent money to help me more than once.

¹⁷ It is not that I want the gift. But I want you to have more and more blessing because you give.

¹⁸ I have all I need and more. Yes, I have plenty because Epaphroditus gave me what you sent me. Your gift was like a sweet-smelling offering to God. It was a sacrifice which God took and it pleased him.

¹⁹ My God will give you everything you need. He has wonderful riches in heaven because of Christ Jesus.

²⁰ Praise God our Father for ever. Yes, he will do it.

²¹ Please give my greetings to every one who belongs to Christ Jesus. The Christian brothers who are with me greet you.

²² All of God's people send greetings to you, especially the people of Caesar's house.

²³ The loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen, may it be so!