1. Paul, a prisoner of Messiah Yeshua, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker,
2. to the beloved Apphia, to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the assembly in your house:
3. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
4. I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers,
5. hearing of your love, and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Yeshua, and toward all the holy ones;
6. that the fellowship of your faith may become effective, in the knowledge of every good thing which is in us in Messiah Yeshua.
7. For we have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the holy ones have been refreshed through you, brother.
8. Therefore though I have all boldness in Messiah to command you that which is appropriate,
9. yet for love’s sake I rather beg, being such a one as Paul, the aged, but also a prisoner of Yeshua the Messiah.
10. I beg you for my child, whom I have become the father of in my chains, Onesimus,
11. who once was useless to you, but now is useful to you and to me.
12. I am sending him back. Therefore receive him, that is, my own heart,
13. whom I desired to keep with me, that on your behalf he might serve me in my chains for the Good News.
14. But I was willing to do nothing without your consent, that your goodness would not be as of necessity, but of free will.
15. For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while, that you would have him forever,