3 Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

Breaking with the Past

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a source of steadfastness.

² Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!^{[a](A) 3} For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God^[b] and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh^(B)— ⁴ even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;^{(C) 6} as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.^{(D) 8} More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ^{(E) 9} and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ,^[c] the righteousness from God based on faith.^{(F) 10} I want to know Christ^[d] and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.^(G)

Pressing toward the Goal

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,^[e] but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ^[f] has laid hold of me.^{(H) 13} Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold^[g] of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,^{(I) 14} I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly^[h] call of God in Christ Jesus.^{(J) 15} Let those of us, then, who are mature^[i] think this way, and if you think differently about anything, this, too, God will reveal to you.^{(K) 16} Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.^(L)

¹⁷ Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.^{(M) 18} For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.^{(N) 19} Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.^{(O) 20} But our citizenship^[j] is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation^[k] that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,^[l] by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.^(P)