{"collection":"Bible & Christianity","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bib/wey/plm.htm","path":"bib/wey/plm.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bib/wey/plm.htm","text":"1:1 Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother: To Philemon our dearly-loved fellow labourer--\n1:2 and to our sister Apphia and our comrade Archippus--as well as to the Church in your house.\n1:3 May grace be granted to you all, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.\n1:4 I give continual thanks to my God while making mention of you, my brother, in my prayers,\n1:5 because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have towards the Lord Jesus and which you manifest towards all God's people;\n1:6 praying as I do, that their participation in your faith may result in others fully recognizing all the right affection that is in us toward Christ.\n1:7 For I have found great joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of God's people have been, and are, refreshed through you, my brother.\n1:8 Therefore, though I might with Christ's authority speak very freely and order you to do what is fitting,\n1:9 it is for love's sake that--instead of that--although I am none other than Paul the aged, and am now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus,\n1:10 I entreat you on behalf of my own child whose father I have become while in my chains--I mean Onesimus.\n1:11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now--true to his name--he is of great use to you and to me.\n1:12 I am sending him back to you, though in so doing I send part of myself.\n1:13 It was my wish to keep him at my side for him to attend to my wants, as your representative, during my imprisonment for the Good News.\n1:14 Only I wished to do nothing without your consent, so that his kind action of yours might not be done under pressure, but might be a voluntary one.\n1:15 For perhaps it was for this reason he was parted from you for a time, that you might receive him back wholly and for ever yours;\n1:16 no longer as a slave, but as something better than a slave--a brother peculiarly dear to me, and even dearer to you, both as a servant and as a fellow Christian.\n1:17 If therefore you regard me as a comrade, receive him as if he were I myself.\n1:18 And if he was ever dishonest or is in your debt, debit me with the amount.\n1:19 I Paul write this with my own hand--I will pay you in full. (I say nothing of the fact that you owe me even your own self.)\n1:20 Yes, brother, do me this favour for the Lord's sake. Refresh my heart in Christ.\n1:21 I write to you in the full confidence that you will meet my wishes, for I know you will do even more than I say.\n1:22 And at the same time provide accommodation for me; for I hope that through your prayers I shall be permitted to come to you.\n1:23 Greetings to you, my brother, from Epaphras my fellow prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus;\n1:24 and from Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.\n1:25 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with the spirit of every one of you.","title":"Weymouth New Testament: Philemon","type":"page"}