For if y’all have these qualities and they are continually increasing, they prevent y’all from being ineffective or unproductive in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let the word of Christ dwell in y’all richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in y’all’s heart to God.
Additionally then, siblings, we ask and urge y’all in the Lord Jesus, that as y’all received instruction from us on how you* should live to please God—as y’all are doing—do it all the more.
Therefore, my beloved siblings, y’all must stand firm, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because y’all know that y’all’s labor in the Lord is not in vain.
We should always give thanks to God for y’all, siblings, and rightly so, because y’all’s faith is flourishing and the love y’all have toward one another keeps growing,
Y’all must examine yourselves to see whether y’all are in the faith. Y’all should test yourselves. Or do y’all not recognize that Jesus Christ is in y’all?—unless indeed y’all fail the test.
Besides, they also learn to be idle, going about from house to house. Not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things that are not proper.
But since y’all excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in y’all’s love for us—y’all be sure to excel in this grace as well.
The seed sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, making it unfruitful.
But more than that, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered and lost everything. Indeed, I consider them excrement, that I may gain Christ
so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please him in everything, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,
For if, after they have escaped the corruption of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, their last state has become worse for them than the first.