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my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! To write the same things to you is no trouble for me, and for you it is a safeguard.
2 Watch out for those dogs, beware of those evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who rejoice in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh— 4 although I myself also have reasons for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, faultless.
7 But whatever was to my profit, I have come to regard as a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I consider everything to be a loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 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—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being like Him in His death, 11 and assuming that somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been perfected, but I press on to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself to have yet taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining forward to what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
15 All of us who are mature should also think this way; and if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have already attained.
17 Brothers, join in following my example, and take notice of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. 18 For, as I have often told you and now say it again even with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we eagerly await a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control.