1 TO conclude, my brethren: rejoice in the Lord. To repeat to you the same things is not tiresome to me and it is safe for you.

2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the bad workmen, beware of the excision.

3 For we are the circumcision, we who worship in the Spirit of God and exult in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,

4 though I have ground for confidence even in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he has ground for confidence in the flesh, I have more \'97

5 circumcised the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the Law a Pharisee,

6 as to zeal persecuting the church, as to the righteousness of the Law blameless.

7 But the things that were gain to me, those I have counted loss for Christ.

8 Yes, I count all to be loss because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ

9 and be found in him, not having my own righteousness that was from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God and rests on faith,

10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in death,

11 if possibly I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

13 Brethren, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and stretching forward to what is in front

14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

15 Let us all who are full grown think in this way. If in anything you think differently, even that God will reveal to you,

16 but so far as we have attained let us walk in the same path.

17 Unite in imitating me, brethren, and watch those who are living according to our example.

18 For many are living as I used often to tell you and now say even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.

19 Their end is ruin, their God is their stomach, their glory is in their shame, they think earthly thoughts.

20 For the state of which we are citizens is in the heavens and from there we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

21 He will transform the body we have in our low estate into the likeness of the body he has in glory by the power by which he can subject all things to himself.