The Church, however, throughout the whole of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria, had peace and was spiritually built up; and grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord and receiving encouragement from the Holy Spirit.
I plead with you therefore, brethren, by the compassionsof God, to present all your faculties to Him as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to Him. This with you will be an act of reasonable worship.
But as for me Paul, I entreat you by the gentleness and self-forgetfulness of Christ–I who when among you have not an imposing personal presence, but when absent am fearlessly outspoken in dealing with you.
On Christ's behalf therefore we come as ambassadors, God, as it were, making entreaty through our lips: we, on Christ's behalf, beseech men to be reconciled to God.
And live and act lovingly, as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up to death on our behalf as an offering and sacrifice to God, yielding a fragrant odor.
Only let the lives you live be worthy of the Good News of the Christ, in order that, whether I come and see you or, being absent, only hear of you, I may know that you are standing fast in one spirit and with one mind, fighting shoulder to shoulder for the faith of the Good News.
so that your lives may be worthy of the Lord and perfectly pleasing to Him, while you exhibit the results of right action of every sort and grow into a fuller knowledge of God.
Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, sends greetings to you, always wrestling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand firm–Christians of ripe character and of clear conviction as to everything which is God's will.
It is with this view also that we continually pray to our God for you, asking that He will count you worthy of His call, and by His mighty power fully gratify your every desire for what is truly good and make your work of faith complete;
For He saved us and called us with a holy call, not in accordance with our desserts, but in accordance with His own purpose and the free grace which He bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before the commencement of the Ages,
fully equip you with every grace that you may need for the doing of His will, producing in us that which will truly please Him through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory to the Ages of the Ages! Amen.
Therefore, holy brethren, sharers with others in a heavenly invitation, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest whose followers we profess to be.
Dear friends, I entreat you as pilgrims and foreigners not to indulge the cravings of your lower natures: for all such cravings wage war upon the soul.
not requiting evil with evil nor abuse with abuse, but, on the contrary, giving a blessing in return, because a blessing is what you have been called by God to inherit.
And God, the giver of all grace, who has called you to share His eternal glory, through Christ, after you have suffered for a short time, will Himself make you perfect, firm, and strong.
seeing that His divine power has given us all things that are needful for life and godliness, through our knowledge of Him who has appealed to us by His own glorious perfections.
And now, dear lady, I pray you –writing to you, as I do, not a new command, but the one which we have had from the very beginning– let us love one another.