Philippians 3

³Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

Breaking with the Past

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a source of steadfastness.

²Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!^{n* 3}For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God^o and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh^*—⁴even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;^{* 6}as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.^{* 8}More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ^{* 9}and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ,^p the righteousness from God based on faith.^{* 10}I want to know Christ^q and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.^*

Pressing toward the Goal

¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,^r but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ^s has laid hold of me.^{* 13}Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold^t of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,^{* 14}I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly^u call of God in Christ Jesus.^{* 15}Let those of us, then, who are mature^v think this way, and if you think differently about anything, this, too, God will reveal to you.^{* 16}Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.^*

¹⁷Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.^{* 18}For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.^{* 19}Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.^{* 20}But our citizenship^w is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹He will transform the body of our humiliation^x that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,^y by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.^*