The King James Version Bible

Philemon 1:9-15

  1. Yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

  2. I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds:

  3. Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me:

  4. Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels:

  5. Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel:

  6. But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.

  7. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever;