Philippians 3

¹ Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.[*a]

² Beware of dogs! Watch out for the people who are making mischief. Watch out for the cutters.[*b]

³ We are the real people of the circumcision, we who worship in accordance with the Spirit of God; we have our own glory from Christ Jesus without having to rely on a physical operation.

⁴ If it came to relying on physical evidence, I should be fully qualified myself. Take any man who thinks he can rely on what is physical: I am even better qualified.

⁵ I was born of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents, and I was circumcised when I was eight days old. As for the Law, I was a Pharisee;

⁶ as for working for religion, I was a persecutor of the Church; as far as the Law can make you perfect, I was faultless.

⁷ But because of Christ, I have come to consider all these advantages that I had as disadvantages.

⁸ Not only that, but I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ

⁹ and be given a place in him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith.

¹⁰ All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death.

¹¹ That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead.

¹² Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me.

¹³ I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come;

¹⁴ I am racing for the finish, for is the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ We who are called ‘perfect’ must all think in this way. If there is some point on which you see things differently, God will make it clear to you;

¹⁶ meanwhile, let us go forward on the road that has brought us to where we are.

¹⁷ My brothers, be united in following my rule of life. Take as your models everybody who is already doing this and study them as you used to study us.

¹⁸ I have told you often, and I repeat it today with tears, there are many who are behaving as the enemies of the cross of Christ.

¹⁹ They are destined to be lost. They make foods into their god and they are proudest of something they ought to think shameful; the things they think important are earthly things.

²⁰ For us, our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the saviour we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ,

²¹ and he will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body. He will do that by the same power with which he can subdue the whole universe.