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1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write these same things again to you is no trouble for me, and it keeps you safe. 2 Watch out for the dogs, those evil workers, those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision. It is we who worship by the Spirit of God. It is we who take pride in Christ Jesus, and who have no confidence in the flesh. 4 Even so, I myself could have confidence in the flesh. If anyone thinks he has confidence in the flesh, I could have even more. 5 I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; with regard to the law, a Pharisee. 6 As for zeal, I persecuted the church; as for righteousness under the law, I was blameless. 7 But whatever things were a profit for me, I have considered them as loss because of Christ. 8 In fact, now I count all things to be loss because of the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have given up all things—and I consider them rubbish—so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him. I do not have a righteousness of my own from the law. Instead, I have the righteousness that is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that is from God based on faith. 10 So now I want to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. I want to be transformed into the likeness of his death, 11 so somehow I may experience the resurrection from the dead. 12 It is not true that I have already received these things, or that I have become complete. But I press on in order that I may grasp that for which I was grasped by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers, I do not think that I myself have yet grasped it. But there is one thing: I forget what is behind and strain for what is ahead. 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us who are mature, let us think this way; and if you think differently about anything, God will also reveal that to you. 16 However, whatever we have reached, let us hold on to it.
17 Be imitators of me, brothers. Closely watch those who are walking by the example that you have in us. 18 Many are walking—those about whom I have often told you, and now I am telling you with tears—as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction. For their god is their stomach, and their pride is in their shame. They think about earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform our lowly bodies into bodies formed like his glorious body, formed by the might of his power to subject all things to himself.