4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised 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.

7 Yet 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 Christq and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.*

Pressing toward the Goal

12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,r but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christs has laid hold of me.* 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid holdt 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 heavenlyu call of God in Christ Jesus.*