Philemon 1:8-16

8Therefore [on the basis of these facts], though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is appropriate,

9yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you—since I am such a person as Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner [for the sake] of Christ Jesus—

10I appeal to you for my [own spiritual] child Onesimus, whom I have fathered [in the faith] while a captive in these chains.

11Once he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you as well as to me.

12I have sent him back to you in person, that is, like sending my very heart.

13I would have chosen to keep him with me, so that he might minister to me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel;

14but I did not want to do anything without first getting your consent, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will.

15Perhaps it was for this reason that he was separated from you for a while, so that you would have him back forever,

16no longer as a slave, but [as someone] more than a slave, as a brother [in Christ], especially dear to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh [as a servant] and in the Lord [as a fellow believer].