3 ¹ And now, friends, farewell; I wish you joy in the Lord.

To REPEAT what I have written to you before is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.

3 ² Beware of those dogs and their malpractices. Beware of those who insist on mutilation—'circumcision' I will not call it; 3 ³ we are the circumcised, we whose worship is spiritual, Some witnesses read: who worship God in the spirit; Others read: who worship by the Spirit of God. whose pride is in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in anything external. 3 ⁴ Not that I am without grounds myself even for confidence of that kind. If anyone thinks to base his claims on externals, 3 ⁵ I could make a stronger case for myself: circumcised on my eighth day, Israelite by race, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born and bred; Or: a Hebrew-speaking Jew of a Hebrew-speaking family. in my attitude to the law, a Pharisee; 3 ⁶ in pious zeal, a persecutor of the church; in legal rectitude, faultless. 3 ⁷ But all such assets I have written off because of Christ. 3 ⁸ I would say more: I count everything sheer loss, because all is far out-weighed by the gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I did in fact lose everything. I count it so much garbage, Or: dung. for the sake of gaining Christ 3 ⁹ and finding myself incorporate in him, with no righteousness of my own, no legal rectitude, but the righteousness which comes Or: and in him finding that, though I have righteousness of my own, no legal rectitude, I have the righteousness which comes ... from faith in Christ, given by God in response to faith. 3 ¹⁰ All I care for is to know Christ, to experience the power of his resurrection, and to share his sufferings, in growing conformity with his death, 3 ¹¹ if only I may finally arrive at the resurrection from the dead.