People of Israel, the LORD has spoken! Be humble and listen to him.

If you will not listen, I will cry in secret because of your pride; I will cry bitterly, and my tears will flow because the LORD's people have been taken away as captives.

For I want very much to see you, in order to share a spiritual blessing with you to make you strong.

What I mean is that both you and I will be helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by yours.

I am speaking the truth; I belong to Christ and I do not lie. My conscience, ruled by the Holy Spirit, also assures me that I am not lying

for my people, my own flesh and blood! For their sake I could wish that I myself were under God's curse and separated from Christ.

My friends, how I wish with all my heart that my own people might be saved! How I pray to God for them!

When I come to you, I know that I shall come with a full measure of the blessing of Christ.

In our work together with God, then, we beg you who have received God's grace not to let it be wasted.

Dear friends in Corinth! We have spoken frankly to you; we have opened our hearts wide.

I speak now as though you were my children: show us the same feelings that we have for you. Open your hearts wide!

My dear children! Once again, just like a mother in childbirth, I feel the same kind of pain for you until Christ's nature is formed in you.

God is my witness that I tell the truth when I say that my deep feeling for you all comes from the heart of Christ Jesus himself.

I have thought it necessary to send to you our brother Epaphroditus, who has worked and fought by my side and who has served as your messenger in helping me.

He is anxious to see you all and is very upset because you had heard that he was sick.

So we preach Christ to everyone. With all possible wisdom we warn and teach them in order to bring each one into God's presence as a mature individual in union with Christ.

Greetings from Epaphras, another member of your group and a servant of Christ Jesus. He always prays fervently for you, asking God to make you stand firm, as mature and fully convinced Christians, in complete obedience to God's will.

Obey your leaders and follow their orders. They watch over your souls without resting, since they must give to God an account of their service. If you obey them, they will do their work gladly; if not, they will do it with sadness, and that would be of no help to you.

I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit has warned me that prison and troubles wait for me.

But I reckon my own life to be worth nothing to me; I only want to complete my mission and finish the work that the Lord Jesus gave me to do, which is to declare the Good News about the grace of God.

I will be glad to spend all I have, and myself as well, in order to help you. Will you love me less because I love you so much?

Perhaps my life's blood is to be poured out like an offering on the sacrifice that your faith offers to God. If that is so, I am glad and share my joy with you all.

This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for others!

A Roman officer there had a servant who was very dear to him; the man was sick and about to die.

He is the only one who shares my feelings and who really cares about you.

So then, my friends, how dear you are to me and how I miss you! How happy you make me, and how proud I am of you!---this, dear friends, is how you should stand firm in your life in the Lord.

You learned of God's grace from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is Christ's faithful worker on our behalf.

From Paul, a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy--- To our friend and fellow worker Philemon,