Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech: Philippians | Page 2

and I know that I shall remain, and shall go on working side by side with you all, to promote your progress and joy in the faith; 001:026 so that, as Christians, you may have additional reason for glorying about me as the result of my being with you again. 001:027 Only let the lives you live be worthy of the Good News of the Christ, in order that, whether I come and see you or, being absent, only hear of you, I may know that you are standing fast in one spirit and with one mind, fighting shoulder to shoulder for the faith of the Good News. 001:028 Never for a moment quail before your antagonists. Your fearlessness will be to them a sure token of impending destruction, but to you it will be a sure token of your salvation-- a token coming from God. 001:029 For you have had the privilege granted you on behalf of Christ-- not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer on His behalf; 001:030 maintaining, as you do, the same kind of conflict that you once saw in me and which you still hear that I am engaged in. 002:001 If then I can appeal to you as the followers of Christ, if there is any persuasive power in love and any common sharing of the Spirit, or if you have any tender-heartedness and compassion, make my joy complete by being of one mind, 002:002 united by mutual love, with harmony of feeling giving your minds to one and the same object. 002:003 Do nothing in a spirit of factiousness or of vainglory, but, with true humility, let every one regard the rest as being of more account than himself; 002:004 each fixing his attention, not simply on his own interests, but on those of others also. 002:005 Let the same disposition be in you which was in Christ Jesus. 002:006 Although from the beginning He had the nature of God He did not reckon His equality with God a treasure to be tightly grasped. 002:007 Nay, He stripped Himself of His glory, and took on Him the nature of a bondservant by becoming a man like other men. 002:008 And being recognized as truly human, He humbled Himself and even stooped to die; yes, to die on a cross. 002:009 It is in consequence of this that God has also so highly exalted Him, and has conferred on Him the Name which is supreme above every other, 002:010 in order that in the Name of JESUS every knee should bow, of beings in Heaven, of those on the earth, and of those in the underworld, 002:011 and that every tongue should confess that JESUS CHRIST is LORD, to the glory of God the Father. 002:012 Therefore, my dearly-loved friends, as I have always found you obedient, labour earnestly with fear and trembling-- not merely as though I were present with you, but much more now since I am absent from you--labour earnestly, I say, to make sure of your own salvation. 002:013 For it is God Himself whose power creates within you the desire to do His gracious will and also brings about the accomplishment of the desire. 002:014 Be ever on your guard against a grudging and contentious spirit, 002:015 so that you may always prove yourselves to be blameless and spotless-- irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as heavenly lights in the world, 002:016 holding out to them a Message of Life. It will then be my glory on the day of Christ that I did not run my race in vain nor toil in vain. 002:017 Nay, even if my life is to be poured as a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I rejoice, and I congratulate you all. 002:018 And I bid you also share my gladness, and congratulate me. 002:019 But, if the Lord permits it, I hope before long to send Timothy to you, that I, in turn, may be cheered by getting news of you. 002:020 For I have no one likeminded with him, who will cherish a genuine care for you. 002:021 Everybody concerns himself about his own interests, not about those of Jesus Christ. 002:022 But you know Timothy's approved worth--how, like a child working with his father, he has served with me in furtherance of the Good News. 002:023 So it is he that I hope to send as soon as ever I see how things go with me; 002:024 but trusting, as I do, in the Lord, I believe that I shall myself also come to you before long. 002:025 Yet I deem it important to send Epaphroditus to you now-- he is my