Chapter 2

1  If then there be any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and compassions, 2  fulfil my joy, that ye may think the same thing, having the same love, joined in soul, thinking one thing; 3  let nothing be in the spirit of strife or vain glory, but, in lowliness of mind, each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves; 4  regarding not each his own qualities, but each those of others also. 5  For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; 6  who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; 7  but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men; 8  and having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. 9  Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, 10  that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal beings, 11  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father’s glory.

12  So that, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13  for it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to his good pleasure.

14  Do all things without murmurings and reasonings, 15  that ye may be harmless and simple, irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation; among whom ye appear as lights in the world, 16  holding forth the word of life, so as to be a boast for me in Christ’s day, that I have not run in vain nor laboured in vain. 17  But if also I am poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice in common with you all. 18  In like manner do ye also rejoice, and rejoice with me. 19  But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus to you shortly, that I also may be refreshed, knowing how ye get on. 20  For I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on. 21  For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ. 22  But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child a father, he has served with me in the work of the glad tidings. 23  Him therefore I hope to send immediately, as soon as I shall see how it goes with me: 24  but I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall soon come; 25  but I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-workman and fellow-soldier, but your messenger and minister to my need, 26  since he had a longing desire after you all, and was distressed because ye had heard that he was sick; 27  for he was also sick close to death, but God had mercy on him, and not indeed on him alone, but also on me, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. 28  I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that seeing him ye might again rejoice, and that I might be the less sorrowful. 29  Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such in honour; 30  because for the sake of the work he drew near even to death, venturing his life that he might fill up what lacked in your ministration toward me.