⁷ So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart. You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News.

³ I’m not saying this to condemn you. I said before that you are in our hearts, and we live or die together with you.

⁵ for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.

⁹ And because I preach this Good News, I am suffering and have been chained like a criminal. But the word of God cannot be chained.

¹⁸ HERE IS MY GREETING IN MY OWN HANDWRITING—PAUL.

Remember my chains.

May God’s grace be with you.

¹⁴ Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.

¹⁶ They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. ¹⁷ Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me.

²⁰ I am in chains now, still preaching this message as God’s ambassador. So pray that I will keep on speaking boldly for him, as I should.

God’s Mysterious Plan Revealed

3 When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the benefit of you Gentiles^[a] . . .

²³ except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead.