Study Desk

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.

I am therefore all the more eager to send him, in the hope that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have the less sorrow.

I do not say that I have already won the race or have already reached perfection. But I am pressing on, striving to lay hold of the prize for which also Christ has laid hold of me.

I know both how to live in humble circumstances and how to live amid abundance. I am fully initiated into all the mysteries both of fulness and of hunger, of abundance and of want.

For I would have you know in how severe a struggle I am engaged on behalf of you and the brethren in Laodicea and of all who have not known me personally,

For although, as you say, I am absent from you in body, yet in spirit I am present with you and am delighted to witness your good discipline and the solid front presented by your faith in Christ.

And pray at the same time for us also, that God may open for us a door for preaching, for us to tell the truth concerning Christ for the sake of which I am even a prisoner.

And when this Letter has been read among you, let it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans, and you in turn must read the one I am sending to Laodicea.

I am thankful to Him who made me strong--even Christ Jesus our Lord--because He has judged me to be faithful and has put me into His service,

and of which I have been appointed a herald and an Apostle (I am speaking the truth: it is not a fiction), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

All this I write to you, though I am hoping before long to come to see you.

For I recall the sincere faith which is in your heart--a faith which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and then in your mother Eunice, and, I am fully convinced, now dwells in you also.

That indeed is the reason why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know in whom my trust reposes, and I am confident that He has it in His power to keep what I have entrusted to Him safe until that day.

Mark well what I am saying: the Lord will give you discernment in everything.

For preaching the Good News I suffer, and am even put in chains, as if I were a criminal: yet the word of God is not imprisoned.

I for my part am like a drink-offering which is already being poured out; and the time for my departure is now close at hand.

it is for love's sake that--instead of that--although I am none other than Paul the aged, and am now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus,

I am sending him back to you, though in so doing I send part of myself.

and again, "As for Me, I will be one whose trust reposes in God;" and again, "Here am I, and here are the children God has given Me."

Because it stands written, "You are to be holy, because I am holy."