1In conclusion, my friends, may all joy be yours in your union with the Lord. To repeat what I have already written does not weary me, and is the safe course for you.
2Beware of those dogs! Beware of those mischievous workers! Beware of the men who mutilate themselves!
3For it is we who are the circumcised – we whose worship is prompted by the Spirit of God, who exult in Christ Jesus, and who do not rely on external privileges;
4though I, if anyone, have cause to rely even on them. If anyone thinks he can rely on external privileges, far more can I!
5I was circumcised when eight days old; I am an Israelite by birth, and of the tribe of Benjamin; I am a Hebrew, and the child of Hebrews. As to the Law, I was a Pharisee;
6as to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church; as to such righteousness as is due to Law, I proved myself blameless.
7But all the things which I once held to be gains I have now, for the Christ’s sake, come to count as loss.
8More than that, I count everything as loss, for the sake of the exceeding value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. And for his sake I have lost everything, and count it as rubbish, if I may but gain Christ
9and be found in union with him. Any righteousness that I have is not the righteousness that results from Law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Christ – the righteousness which is derived from God and is founded on faith.
10Then indeed I will know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and all that it means to share his sufferings,
11in the hope that, if I become like him in death, I may possibly attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12Not that I have already laid hold of it, or that I am already made perfect. But I press on, in the hope of actually laying hold of that for which indeed I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
13For I, friends, do not regard myself as having yet laid hold of it. But this one thing I do – forgetting what lies behind, and straining every nerve for that which lies in front,
14I press on to the goal, to gain the prize of that heavenward call which God gave me through Christ Jesus.
15Let all of us, then, whose faith is mature, think this way. Then, if on any matter you think otherwise, God will make that also plain to you.
16Only we are bound to order our lives by what we have already attained.
17My friends, unite in following my example, and fix your eyes on those who are living by the pattern which we have set you.
18For there are many – of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even with tears – who are living in enmity to the cross of the Christ.
19The end of such people is ruin; for their appetites are their God, and they glory in their shame; their minds are given up to earthly things.
20But we are citizens of heaven, and from heaven we expect a savior to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.
21By the exercise of his power to bring everything into subjection to himself, he will make our humble bodies like his glorious body.