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2:1  So if our shared life in the Messiah brings you any comfort; if love still has the power to make you cheerful; if we really do have a partnership in the spirit; if your hearts are at all moved with affection and sympathy—
2:2  then make my joy complete! Bring your thinking into line with one another. Here’s how to do it. Hold on to the same love; bring your innermost lives into harmony; fix your minds on the same object.
2:3  Never act out of selfish ambition or vanity; instead, regard everybody else as your superior.
2:4  Look after each other’s best interests, not your own.
2:5  This is how you should think among yourselves—with the mind that you have because you belong to the Messiah, Jesus:
2:6  Who, though in God’s form, did not regard his equality with God as something he ought to exploit.
2:7  Instead, he emptied himself, and received the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of humans. And then, having human appearance,
2:8  he humbled himself, and became obedient even to death, yes, even the death of the cross.
2:9  And so God has greatly exalted him, and to him in his favor has given the name which is over all names:
2:10  That now at the name of Jesus every knee within heaven shall bow— on earth, too, and under the earth;
2:11  And every tongue shall confess that Jesus, Messiah, is Lord, to the glory of God, the father.
2:12  So, my dear people: you always did what I said, so please now carry on in the same way, not just as though I was there with you, but much more because I’m not! Your task now is to work at bringing about your own salvation; and naturally you’ll be taking this with utter seriousness.
2:13  After all, God himself is the one who’s at work among you, who provides both the will and the energy to enable you to do what pleases him.
2:14  There must be no grumbling and disputing in anything you do.
2:15  That way, nobody will be able to fault you, and you’ll be pure and spotless children of God in the midst of a twisted and depraved generation. You are to shine among them like lights in the world,
2:16  clinging on to the word of life. That’s what I will be proud of on the day of the Messiah. It will prove that I didn’t run a useless race, or work to no purpose.
2:17  Yes: even if I am to be poured out like a drink-offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I shall celebrate, and celebrate jointly with you all.
2:18  In the same way, you should celebrate, yes, and celebrate with me.
2:19  I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I in turn may be encouraged by getting news about you.
2:20  I have nobody else of his quality: he will care quite genuinely about how you are.
2:21  Everybody else, you see, looks after their own interests, not those of Messiah Jesus.
2:22  But you know how Timothy has proved himself. Like a child with a father he has worked as a slave alongside me for the sake of the gospel.
2:23  So I’m hoping to send him just as soon as I see how it will turn out with me.
2:24  And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come very soon as well.
2:25  But I did think it was necessary to send Epaphroditus to you. He is my brother; he has worked alongside me and fought alongside me; and he’s served as your agent in tending to my needs.
2:26  He was longing for you all, you see, and he was upset because you heard that he was sick.
2:27  And he really was sick, too; he nearly died. But God took pity on him—yes, and on me as well, so that I wouldn’t have one sorrow piled on top of another.
2:28  This has made me all the more eager to send him, so that you’ll see him again and be glad, and my own anxieties will be laid to rest.
2:29  So give him a wonderfully happy welcome in the Lord, and hold people like him in special respect.
2:30  He came close to death through risking his life for the Messiah’s work, so that he could complete the service to me that you hadn’t been able to perform.