2:12 So that, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
2:13 for it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to [his] good pleasure.
2:14 Do all things without murmurings and reasonings,
2:15 that ye may be harmless and simple, irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation; among whom ye appear as lights in [the] world,
2:16 holding forth [the] word of life, so as to be a boast for me in Christ's day, that I have not run in vain nor laboured in vain.
2:17 But if also I am poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice in common with you all.
2:18 In like manner do *ye* also rejoice, and rejoice with me.
2:19 But I hope in [the] LordJesus to send Timotheus to you shortly, that *I* also may be refreshed, knowing how ye get on.
2:20 For I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on.
2:21 For all seek their own things, not the things of JesusChrist.
2:22 But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child a father, he has served with me in the work of the glad tidings.
2:23 Him therefore I hope to send immediately, as soon as I shall see how it goes with me:
2:24 but I trust in [the] Lord that I myself also shall soon come;
2:25 but I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-workman and fellow- soldier, but your messenger and minister to my need,
2:26 since he had a longing desire after you all, and was distressed because ye had heard that he was sick;
2:27 for he was also sick close to death, but God had mercy on him, and not indeed on him alone, but also on me, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow.
2:28 I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that seeing him ye might again rejoice, and that *I* might be the less sorrowful.
2:29 Receive him therefore in [the] Lord with all joy, and hold such in honour;
2:30 because for the sake of the work he drew near even to death, venturing his life that he might fill up what lacked in your ministration toward me.