1  I, Paul, and Timothy, who is with me, are men who serve Christ Jesus. I am writing this letter to all of you who are pastors and deacons in Philippi city and to the rest of God’s people there who have a close relationship with Christ Jesus. 2  We both (OR, I) pray that God, who is our Father, and Jesus Christ, who is our Lord, will continue to be kind to you and will continue to cause you to have inner peace.

3 I thank my God whenever I think about you. 4 Every time [DOU] I pray for you, I joyfully pray [DOU] for all of you. 5 I thank God and rejoice because you have been working together with me in order to make known the good message about Christ. You started doing that when you first [MTY] believed it, and you have continued doing it until now. 6 I am completely confident that God, who has begun to do in you what is good, (OR, that since God has begun to do in you what is good, he) will continue to do that until he finishes doing it on the day Christ Jesus [MTY] returns. 7 During this time that I have been a prisoner [MTY] and during the times I was previously able to defend the good message about Christ and proved/confirmed to others that it is true, all of you have been sharing with me (OR, have helped me) in this work that God kindly gave to me to do. So indeed it is right that I feel joyful about you all, because you are very dear [IDM] to me. 8 God can verify that Christ Jesus causes me to love and long for all of you very much, just like Christ loves you.

9 And what I pray for you is that God will enable you to truly know and learn how to love one another more and more in every situation. 10  And I pray that he will enable you to completely understand how you should believe and act. I pray this in order that you might be spiritually pure and faultless (OR, completely faultless [DOU]) on the day that Christ returns [MTY], 11  and in order that you might conduct your lives [IDM] completely righteously as a result of Jesus Christ enabling you to do so, in order that people will honor God and praise him (OR, people will praise God very much [DOU]).

12 My fellow believers, I want you to know that the troubles I have experienced have not prevented me from proclaiming the good message to people. Instead, these things that I have experienced have enabled even more people to hear the good message about Christ. 13  Specifically, all the military guards who are stationed here in Rome and many other [HYP] people in this city [HYP] now know that I am a prisoner [MTY] because I proclaim the good news about Christ. 14 Also, most of the believers here now proclaim the message from God more courageously and fearlessly because they trust the Lord more firmly to help them. They trust the Lord more because they have seen how the Lord has helped me while I have been a prisoner [MTY] here.

15-16 Some people proclaim the message about Christ as I do because they are happy with my work. They proclaim the message about Christ because they love me and because they know that God has placed me here to defend the message about Christ [CHI]. 17 Others proclaim the message about Christ because they envy me and oppose me. They proclaim the message about Christ because they have wrong motives. They wrongly assume that because they are causing many people to follow them, I will be jealous, and as a result, I will feel more miserable while I am a prisoner [MTY] here. 18 But it does not matter whether people proclaim the message about Christ because they have wrong motives, or whether people proclaim the message about Christ because they have right motives. The important thing in either case is that the message about Christ is being proclaimed {people are proclaiming the message about Christ}. And because of that I rejoice!

Furthermore, I will continue to rejoice, 19 because when I experience troubles, I know that some day God will say that he approves of what I have done (OR, that the Roman authorities will set me free). This will happen as a result of your praying for me, and as a result of God’s Spirit, whom Jesus Christ gave me, helping me. 20 I know that this will happen because I very confidently expect [DOU] that I will faithfully honor Christ. I expect that like I always have done, Christ will be greatly honored {I will continue now also to very boldly honor Christ} by means of all that I do [SYN, MTY], whether by the way I live or by the way I die.

21 As for me, I live in order to honor Christ. But if I die, it will be better for me than if I continue to live, because then I will be with him. 22 On the other hand, if I continue to live, that will enable me to continue to serve Christ effectively. As a result, I do not know which to choose. 23 That is, I am not sure which of those two I prefer. I long to leave this world and go to be with Christ, because that will be very much better for me. 24 Nevertheless, it is more important that I remain alive than that I go to be with Christ because you still need me to help you. 25 Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain alive and that I will go/come to be with you all. As a result, you will believe in Christ more firmly, and as a result of that, you will rejoice. 26  That is, you will be able to rejoice very greatly because of Christ Jesus bringing me to be with you again.

27 Most importantly, as fellow believers in Christ, conduct yourselves just like you learned you should do when you heard the message about Christ. Do that in order that whether I come and see you, or whether I am away from you and people tell me about you, what I hear or see will make me happy. They will tell me that you are unitedly and cooperatively resisting those who oppose the message about Christ (OR, oppose you). I will know that you are not allowing others to influence you to believe a message that is different from the gospel about Christ. 28 And I will know that you are not at all frightened by {afraid of} the people who oppose you. This will show/prove to those people that God will destroy them, but this will show/prove to you that God will save you eternally. It is God who is doing all this. 29 Remember that he has not only kindly enabled you to believe in Christ, he has also kindly allowed you to suffer for the sake of Christ. 30  As a result, you are having to resist those who oppose the good message, just like you saw that I had to resist such people there in Philippi, and just like you hear that I still have to resist such people here now.