3:1 Finally, my brothers and sisters, 1 rejoice in the Lord! To write this again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
3:2 Beware of the dogs, 2 beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! 3 3:3 For we are the circumcision, 4 the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, 5 exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials 6 3:4 – though mine too are significant. 7 If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, 8 I have more: 3:5 I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. 9 3:6 In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless. 3:7 But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ. 3:8 More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things – indeed, I regard them as dung! 10 – that I may gain Christ, 3:9 and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness 11 – a righteousness from God that is in fact 12 based on Christ’s 13 faithfulness. 14 3:10 My aim is to know him, 15 to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, 16 and to be like him in his death, 3:11 and so, somehow, 17 to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
3:12 Not that I have already attained this – that is, I have not already been perfected – but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. 18 3:13 Brothers and sisters, 19 I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: 20 Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, 3:14 with this goal in mind, 21 I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God 22 in Christ Jesus. 3:15 Therefore let those of us who are “perfect” embrace this point of view. 23 If you think otherwise, God will reveal to you the error of your ways. 24 3:16 Nevertheless, let us live up to the standard 25 that we have already attained. 26
3:17 Be imitators of me, 27 brothers and sisters, 28 and watch carefully those who are living this way, just as you have us as an example. 3:18 For many live, about whom I have often told you, and now, with tears, I tell you that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. 3:19 Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they think about earthly things. 29