For God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
More than that, I count all things as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish so that I may gain Christ
so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord with every desire to please him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly increasing and the love that every one of you has for one another is abounding.
For if you possess these qualities and continue to grow in them, they will keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For if after they have escaped from the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in these defilements and overcome, the last state is worse for them than the first.