¹⁹ My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,^(A)

²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.^[a](A)

¹³ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity,^[a] to the measure of the full stature of Christ.^(A)

¹⁴ Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.^(A)

²⁴ and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.^(A)

¹² Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ,^[a] greets you. He is always striving in his prayers on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured^[b] in everything that God wills.^(A)

¹⁰ and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.^(A)

Fatherly Admonition

¹⁴ I am not writing this to make you ashamed but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵ For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I fathered you through the gospel.^(A)

⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was^[a] in Christ Jesus,^(A)

¹¹ So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? ¹² Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a wet nurse carries a nursing child, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors’?^(A)