3:2 Beware of the dogs, ¹  beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! ²  3:3 For we are the circumcision, ³  the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, ⁴  exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials ⁵  3:4 – though mine too are significant. ⁶  If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, ⁷  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. ⁸  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! ⁹  – 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 ¹⁰  – a righteousness from God that is in fact ¹¹  based on Christ’s ¹²  faithfulness. ¹³  3:10 My aim is to know him, ¹⁴  to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, ¹⁵  and to be like him in his death, 3:11 and so, somehow, ¹⁶  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. ¹⁷  3:13 Brothers and sisters, ¹⁸  I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: ¹⁹  Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, 3:14 with this goal in mind, ²⁰  I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God ²¹  in Christ Jesus.