³ I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.

⁴ In every prayer of mine I always make my entreaty and petition for you all with joy (delight).

⁵ [I thank my God] for your fellowship (your ^[a]sympathetic cooperation and contributions and partnership) in advancing the good news (the Gospel) from the first day [you heard it] until now.

⁶ And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.

⁷ It is right and appropriate for me to have this confidence and feel this way about you all, because ^[b]you have me in your heart and I hold you in my heart as partakers and sharers, one and all with me, of grace (God’s unmerited favor and spiritual blessing). [This is true] both when I am shut up in prison and when I am out in the defense and confirmation of the good news (the Gospel).

⁸ For God is my witness how I long for and ^[c]pursue you all with love, in the tender mercy of Christ Jesus [Himself]!

⁹ And this I pray: that your love may abound yet more and more and extend to its fullest development in knowledge and all keen insight [that your love may ^[d]display itself in greater depth of acquaintance and more comprehensive discernment],

¹⁰ So that you may surely learn to sense what is vital, and approve and prize what is excellent and of real value [recognizing the highest and the best, and distinguishing the moral differences], and that you may be untainted and pure and unerring and blameless [so that with hearts sincere and certain and unsullied, you may approach] the day of Christ [not stumbling nor causing others to stumble].

¹¹ May you abound in and be filled with the fruits of righteousness (of right standing with God and right doing) which come through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One), to the honor and praise of God [^[e]that His glory may be both manifested and recognized].