Philippians 2:1-18, Revised from "The Practice of the Way"

 

If you have any motivation with the Anointed, if any encouragement of love, if any communion of the Pneuma, if any deep feelings and compassions, fill my joy so that you would mind the self-same thing, having the self-same love, united in soul, being mindful of the one thing, nothing in line with discord neither in line with a liability to vain imagination but by humility guiding one another [towards the peace]¹ surpassing what comes from yourselves, each person not looking out for their own things but each of you for the things of the others different from yourselves.

Be mindful of this thing within yourselves which also was in the Anointed, Yeshua, who starting off with Divine form, being equal to Divinity, didn’t admire² the spoils of plunder, but emptied Himself taking the form of a slave, having become with the likeness of a human being; and having been found with a figure like a human being He humbled Himself having become obedient up to the point of death, and death of a cross at that. Therefore the God also lifted Him high beyond and charitably gave to Him the name which is over every name, so that with the name of Yeshua every knee of the heavenly realms and of the earthly and of the underworld will bend, and every single tongue will utterly agree that the Owner Yeshua is the Anointed for the purpose of the reputation of the Divine Father.

So as, my dear ones, just like you’ve always obeyed, not as just with my presence but now much more with my being away, achieve your own deliverance with fear and trembling; because the God is the One who acts within you both the willing and the acting on behalf of His good pleasure. Do everything without complaints and overthinking things, so that you would become faultless and unmixed, unblemished Divine children in the middle of a crooked and twisted race, among whom you shine out as heavenly lights in the universe, holding up the Logos of Life, for a reason to brag for me as far as the day of the Anointed, because I didn’t run for an empty reason neither did I wear myself out working for an empty reason. But if also I am poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and liturgy of your realization, I am celebrating and I am celebrating together with you all; and over the self-same thing you both celebrate and celebrate together with me.

1The word for “surpassing” in Greek (sometimes translated as “superior to”) is feminine plural,whereas the word for “one another” is masculine plural. Therefore “surpassing” cannot be referring to “one another.” This suggests a feminine plural word to which “surpassing” is referring is somehow missing from the text. The word “peace” is feminine in Greek, and so, given Paul’s use of “the peace surpassing every intellect” in 4:7, it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that a similar phrase was originally meant here.

2I am translating this word as αγαμαι as this is very close in form to the word in current texts, and fits the context of the sentence better.