³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

²⁶ For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

²⁵ For what does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?^(A)

Poverty and Riches

⁹ Let the brother or sister of humble means boast in having a high position ¹⁰ and the rich in having been humbled, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field.^{(A) 11} For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.^{(A) 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^{(B) 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,^[a] the righteousness from God based on faith.^(C)

²⁴ By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, ²⁵ choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. ²⁶ He considered abuse suffered for the Christ^[a] to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward.

²¹ So what fruit did you then gain from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.^(A)

¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’^{(A) 20} But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’^(B)