Philemon 1:8-16

8Wherefore having much boldness in Christ to enjoin thee what is fitting,

9for love's sake I rather exhort, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also prisoner of Jesus Christ.

10I exhort thee for my child, whom I have begotten in [my] bonds, Onesimus,

11once unserviceable to thee, but now serviceable to thee and to me:

12whom I have sent back to thee: [but do thou receive] him, that is, my bowels:

13whom I was desirous of keeping with myself, that for thee he might minister to me in the bonds of the glad tidings;

14but I have wished to do nothing without thy mind, that thy good might not be as of necessity but of willingness:

15for perhaps for this reason he has been separated [from thee] for a time, that thou mightest possess him fully for ever;

16not any longer as a bondman, but above a bondman, a beloved brother, specially to me, and how much rather to thee, both in [the] flesh and in [the] Lord?