¹² Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, ^[a]with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).

³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life [^[a]in the eternal kingdom of God]?

³⁷ For what can a man give as an exchange (^[b]a compensation, a ransom, in return) for his [blessed] life [^[c]in the eternal kingdom of God]?

²⁶ Therefore I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim). I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary.

²⁷ But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit].