If any exhortation in Christos, if any consolation of devotedness, if any spiritual communion, if any sympathies and compassions, fulfill my joy that you might prudently think the same, having the same devotedness, likeminded, prudently thinking on one thing, nothing according to faction or to vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each considering others as excelling themselves, not each heeding their own things, but also the things of others.
Take prudent thought in yourselves as in Christos Iesous: Who being in possession of the form of God thought being equal to God not to be hoarded, but emptied himself, having laid hold of the form of a slave, having come to be in the likeness of humanity. And having been found in human appearance, he laid himself low, having become obedient as far as death, as death and cross. Therefore God also supremely elevated him and favored him with the name above every name, that at the name of Iesous every knee in heavens and on earth and in nether realms should bend, and every tongue should confess Iesous Christos Lord, to the glory of Father God.
[Philippians 2:1-11, my very, very rough translation. Some tricky grammar and vocabulary here, in part from the fact that everything is highly compressed; also, the second paragraph is usually thought to include at least fragments of one of the earliest recorded Christian hymns, because it is very poetic in expression. My favorite word in the passage is sympsychoi, here translated as 'likeminded'; you could also translate it as 'co-spirited' or 'united in soul'. Harpagmon is usually translated as 'to be grasped' or something similar; the root idea is forcefully seizing, but it can also, depending on the context, mean strongly desiring, seizing as spoil, plunder, loot, or booty, or holding onto as a prize. The logical structure, though, is quite clear: having the form of God, and thus equality with God, he did not vehemently cling to it as his right, but made himself nothing and lowly, so that he received the Name above all names, and thus equality with God, not by mere right but also as reward; this serves as the model for our own humility.]
