2:1   Your life in Christ makes you strong, and his love comforts you. You have fellowship with the Spirit, and you have kindness and compassion for one another.

2:2   I urge you, then, to make me completely happy by having the same thoughts, sharing the same love, and being one in soul and mind.

2:3   Don't do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than yourselves.

2:4   And look out for one another's interests, not just for your own.

2:5   The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:

2:6   He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God.

2:7   Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness.

2:8   He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death--- his death on the cross.

2:9   For this reason God raised him to the highest place above and gave him the name that is greater than any other name.

2:10   And so, in honor of the name of Jesus all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below will fall on their knees,

2:11   and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

2:12   So then, dear friends, as you always obeyed me when I was with you, it is even more important that you obey me now while I am away from you. Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation,

2:13   because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose.

2:14   Do everything without complaining or arguing,

2:15   so that you may be innocent and pure as God's perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must shine among them like stars lighting up the sky,

2:16   as you offer them the message of life. If you do so, I shall have reason to be proud of you on the Day of Christ, because it will show that all my effort and work have not been wasted.

2:17   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.

2:18   In the same way, you too must be glad and share your joy with me.

2:19   If it is the Lord's will, I hope that I will be able to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be encouraged by news about you.

2:20   He is the only one who shares my feelings and who really cares about you.

2:21   Everyone else is concerned only with their own affairs, not with the cause of Jesus Christ.

2:22   And you yourselves know how he has proved his worth, how he and I, like a son and his father, have worked together for the sake of the gospel.

2:23   So I hope to send him to you as soon as I know how things are going to turn out for me.

2:24   And I trust in the Lord that I myself will be able to come to you soon.

2:25   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.

2:26   He is anxious to see you all and is very upset because you had heard that he was sick.

2:27   Indeed he was sick and almost died. But God had pity on him, and not only on him but on me, too, and spared me an even greater sorrow.

2:28   I am all the more eager, then, to send him to you, so that you will be glad again when you see him, and my own sorrow will disappear.

2:29   Receive him, then, with joy, as a believer in the Lord. Show respect to all such people as he,

2:30   because he risked his life and nearly died for the sake of the work of Christ, in order to give me the help that you yourselves could not give.