﻿Philippians.
Chapter 3.
Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you. 
Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for the mutilators. 
For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh, 
though I myself have grounds for confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 
as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness in the law, blameless. 
But whatever things were gain to me, I have counted as loss for Christ. 
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as garbage, so that I may gain Christ 
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith, 
to know him and the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 
Not that I have already obtained it or have already been brought to completion, but I press on to take hold of it, because I too was taken hold of by Christ. 
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and stretching toward what is ahead, 
I press on toward the goal for the prize of God's upward call in Christ Jesus. 
Therefore let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently in anything, God will reveal this to you as well. 
Only let us keep in step with what we have attained. 
Join together in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and observe those who walk according to the example you have in us. 
For many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. I have often told you about them, and now tell you even with tears. 
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things. 
For our citizenship is in the heavens, from which we also eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
who will transform our body of humiliation to be conformed to his body of glory, by the power that enables him also to subject all things to himself. 
