Philemon 1:1-13 ▼

1 PAUL, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy my brother, to Philemon my beloved, and our fellow-laborer,

2 and to our beloved Apphia, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church that is in your house:

3 grace be to you all, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4 I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers,

5 hearing of your love and your faith, which you have in the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints,

6 that your participation in the faith may be active in the acknowledgment of every good thing that is in us, to the honor of Christ Jesus.

7 For we have great joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother.

8 Wherefore, though I have great boldness in Christ to command you to do that which is becoming,

9 yet, on account of my love, I rather exhort you, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner on account of Jesus Christ.

10 I beseech you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds,

11 who, for some time, has been unprofitable to you, but now is very profitable to you and to me:

12 I send him back, and do you receive him, that is, my son.

13 I did wish to keep him with me, that, in your stead, he might serve me in my bonds for the gospel;