I have come to know in God your much-loved name, which you possess by a righteous nature in faith and love in Christ Jesus our Savior. As imitators of God, you rekindled your brotherly work in the blood of God and brought it to perfect completion.
For when you heard that I was being led in chains from Syria for the sake of our common Name and hope, and that I hoped through your prayer to succeed in fighting with wild beasts in Rome, so that through succeeding I might be able to become a disciple, you were eager to see me.
Since, then, in the name of God I received your whole congregation in the person of Onesimus, a man of inexpressible love and your bishop, I pray that you love him in accordance with Jesus Christ and that all of you be like him. For blessed is He who graciously granted you, because you are worthy, to possess such a bishop.