Philippians 3
New Life Version
It Is Christ Only—Not the Things You Do
3 So now, my Christian brothers, be happy because you belong to Christ. It is not hard for me to write the same things to you. It is good for you. 2 Watch out for false teachers. Watch out for sinful men. They want you to depend on the religious act of becoming a Jew for your hope. 3 The act of becoming a Jew has nothing to do with us becoming Christians. We worship God through His Spirit and are proud of Jesus Christ. We have no faith in what we ourselves can do. 4 I could have reason to trust in the flesh. If anyone could feel that the flesh could do something for him, I could. 5 I went through the religious act of becoming a Jew when I was eight days old. I was born a Jew and came from the family group of Benjamin. I was a Jewish son of Jewish parents. I belonged to the group of the proud religious law-keepers. 6 I followed my religion with all my heart and did everything I could to make it hard for the church. No one could say anything against the way I obeyed the Law.
Christ Must Be Lord of Our Lives
7 But I gave up those things that were so important to me for Christ. 8 Even more than that, I think of everything as worth nothing. It is so much better to know Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for Him. And I think of these things as worth nothing so that I can have Christ. 9 I want to be as one with Him. I could not be right with God by what the Law said I must do. I was made right with God by faith in Christ. 10 I want to know Him. I want to have the same power in my life that raised Jesus from the dead. I want to understand and have a share in His sufferings and be like Christ in His death. 11 Then I may be raised up from among the dead.
12 I do not say that I have received this or have already become perfect. But I keep going on to make that life my own as Christ Jesus made me His own. 13 No, Christian brothers, I do not have that life yet. But I do one thing. I forget everything that is behind me and look forward to that which is ahead of me. 14 My eyes are on the crown. I want to win the race and get the crown of God’s call from heaven through Christ Jesus. 15 All of us who are full-grown Christians should think this way. If you do not think this way, God will show it to you. 16 So let us keep on obeying the same truth we have already been following.
17 Christian brothers, live your lives as I have lived mine. Watch those who live as I have taught you to live. 18 There are many whose lives show they hate the cross of Christ. I have told you this before. Now I tell you again with tears in my eyes. 19 Their god is their stomach. They take pride in things they should be ashamed of. All they think about are the things of this world. In the end they will be destroyed. 20 But we are citizens of heaven. Christ, the One Who saves from the punishment of sin, will be coming down from heaven again. We are waiting for Him to return. 21 He will change these bodies of ours of the earth and make them new. He will make them like His body of shining-greatness. He has the power to do this because He can make all things obey Him.
Philippians 3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
3 Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
Breaking with the Past
To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a source of steadfastness.
2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God[b] and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh(B)— 4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;(C) 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.(D) 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(E) 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,[c] the righteousness from God based on faith.(F) 10 I want to know Christ[d] and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.(G)
Pressing toward the Goal
12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,[e] but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ[f] has laid hold of me.(H) 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold[g] of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,(I) 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly[h] call of God in Christ Jesus.(J) 15 Let those of us, then, who are mature[i] think this way, and if you think differently about anything, this, too, God will reveal to you.(K) 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.(L)
17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.(M) 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.(N) 19 Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.(O) 20 But our citizenship[j] is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation[k] that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,[l] by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.(P)
Footnotes
- 3.2 Gk the mutilation
- 3.3 Other ancient authorities read worship God in spirit
- 3.9 Or through the faith of Christ
- 3.10 Gk him
- 3.12 Or have already been made perfect
- 3.12 Other ancient authorities read Christ Jesus
- 3.13 Other ancient authorities read yet laid hold
- 3.14 Gk upward
- 3.15 Or perfect
- 3.20 Or commonwealth
- 3.21 Or our humble bodies
- 3.21 Or his glorious body
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New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.