Read the Bible

¹ In conclusion, my brethren, be joyful in the Lord. For me to give you the same warnings as before is not irksome to me, while so far as you are concerned it is a safe precaution.² Beware of `the dogs,' the bad workmen, the self-mutilators.³ For we are the true circumcision--we who render to God a spiritual worship and make our boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in outward ceremonies:

⁴ although I myself might have some excuse for confidence in outward ceremonies. If any one else claims a right to trust in them, far more may I:⁵ circumcised, as I was, on the eighth day, a member of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews; as to the Law a Pharisee;⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as to the righteousness which comes through Law, blameless.⁷ Yet all that was gain to me--for Christ's sake I have reckoned it loss.⁸ Nay, I even reckon all things as pure loss because of the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And for His sake I have suffered the loss of everything, and reckon it all as mere refuse, in order that I may win Christ and be found in union with Him,

⁹ not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the Law, but that which arises from faith in Christ--the righteousness which comes from God through faith.¹⁰ I long to know Christ and the power which is in His resurrection, and to share in His sufferings and die even as He died;¹¹ in the hope that I may attain to the resurrection from among the dead.¹² I do not say that I have already won the race or have already reached perfection. But I am pressing on, striving to lay hold of the prize for which also Christ has laid hold of me.¹³ Brethren, I do not imagine that I have yet laid hold of it. But this one thing I do--forgetting everything which is past and stretching forward to what lies in front of me,¹⁴ with my eyes fixed on the goal I push on to secure the prize of God's heavenward call in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ Therefore let all of us who are mature believers cherish these thoughts; and if in any respect you think differently, that also God will make clear to you.¹⁶ But whatever be the point that we have already reached, let us persevere in the same course.

¹⁷ Brethren, vie with one another in imitating me, and carefully observe those who follow the example which we have set you.¹⁸ For there are many whom I have often described to you, and I now even with tears describe them, as being enemies to the Cross of Christ.¹⁹ Their end is destruction, their bellies are their God, their glory is in their shame, and their minds are devoted to earthly things.²⁰ We, however, are free citizens of Heaven, and we are waiting with longing expectation for the coming from Heaven of a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,²¹ who, in the exercise of the power which He has even to subject all things to Himself, will transform this body of our humiliation until it resembles His own glorious body.