1. If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy,
2. fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal.
3. Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.
4. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
5. Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,
6. who, existing in the form of God,did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage.
7. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a manin His external form,
8. He humbled Himself by becoming obedientto the point of death —even to death on a cross.
9. For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the namethat is above every name,
10. so that at the name of Jesusevery knee will bow —of those who are in heaven and on earthand under the earth —
11. and every tongue should confessthat Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12. So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.