Chapter 3 — Exhortations to unity.

2I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person.

3For though I am bound for the name of Christ, I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ.

4For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as fellow-disciples with me.

5For it was needful for me to have been stirred up by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering.

6But inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore taken upon me first to exhort you that ye would all run together in accordance with the will of God.

7For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the manifested will of the Father; as also bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds of the earth, are so by the will of Jesus Christ.

8I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person.

9For though I am bound for His name, I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ.

10For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as my fellow-servants.

11For it was needful for me to have been admonished by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering.

12But inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore taken upon me first to exhort you that ye would run together in accordance with the will of God.

13For even Jesus Christ does all things according to the will of the Father, as He Himself declares in a certain place, "I do always those things that please Him".

14Wherefore it behoves us also to live according to the will of God in Christ, and to imitate Him as Paul did.

15For, says he, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ".