For I want you to know the kind of solicitude that I have for you, and for those who are at Laodicea, as well as for those who have not seen my face in the flesh.
For now I rejoice in my passion on your behalf, and I complete in my flesh the things that are lacking in the Passion of Christ, for the sake of his body, which is the Church.
For though I may be absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit. And I rejoice as I gaze upon your order and its foundation, which is in Christ, your faith.
Instead, having previously suffered and been treated shamefully, as you know, at Philippi, we had confidence in our God, so as to speak the Gospel of God to you with much solicitude.
It is Christ who, in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offered prayers and supplications to the One who was able to save him from death, and who was heard because of his reverence.
For though you have not seen him, you love him. In him also, though you do not see him, you now believe. And in believing, you shall exult with an inexpressible and glorious joy,
saying, "What you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven Churches, which are in Asia: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamus, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."