¹⁹But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state. ²⁰For I have no man likeminded, who will care truly for your state. ²¹For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. ²²But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child serveth a father, so he served with me in furtherance of the gospel. ²³Him therefore I hope to send forthwith, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me: ²⁴but I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall come shortly. ²⁵But I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-worker and fellow-soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need; ²⁶since he longed after you all, and was sore troubled, because ye had heard that he was sick: ²⁷for indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. ²⁸I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. ²⁹Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy; and hold such in honor: ³⁰because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.