1Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me, and for you it is a safeguard.
2Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for the mutilation.
3For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and do not put confidence in the flesh—
4though I myself have reason for confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he has grounds to be confident in the flesh, I have more:
5circumcised on the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee;
6regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding righteousness under the law, having become blameless.
7But whatever things were gains to me, these I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8More than that, I indeed even count all things to be loss because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, that I may gain Christ
9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith—
10to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,
11if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12Not that I have already obtained this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of that for which I was also laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
13Brothers, I do not consider myself to have laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting the things behind and straining forward to the things ahead,
14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
15Let all of us, then, who are mature think this way; and if in anything you think differently, God will reveal this also to you.
16Only, to what we have attained, let us hold true to the same.
17Be fellow imitators of me, brothers, and observe those who walk in this way, just as you have us as a pattern.
18For many walk, of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even weeping, as enemies of the cross of Christ,
19whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.
20For our citizenship exists in the heavens, from which also we eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21who will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.
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