7 Your love ⌊for God’s people⌋ gives me a lot of joy and encouragement. You, brother, have comforted God’s people.
8 Christ makes me bold enough to order you to do the right thing.
9 However, I would prefer to make an appeal on the basis of love. I, Paul, as an old man and now a prisoner for Christ Jesus,
10 appeal to you for my child Onesimus [Useful]. I became his spiritual father here in prison.
11 Once he was useless to you, but now he is very useful to both of us.
12 I am sending him back to you. This is like sending you a part of myself.
13 I wanted to keep him here with me. Then he could have served me in your place while I am in prison for spreading the Good News.