r. 17. +United imitators of me become ye, brethren+; taking me, your
long-known guide in the Lord, for your moral pattern, and strengthening
your mutual cohesion (_summimetai_) by so doing (an appeal prompted not
by egotism or self-confidence, but by single-hearted certainty about my
message and my purpose); +and mark+, watch, in order to tread in their
steps,[1] +those who so walk as you have us+, me and my
missionary-brethren, +for a model+; those whose practical conduct in
human life and intercourse (_peripatein_), seen among you day by day in
its wholesomeness and truth, plainly reproduces what you remember of
ours. There is need for this attention, and for this

Ver. 18. discrimination. +For there are many men walking+, pursuing a
line of conduct and practice, +whom I often used to tell you of+, in
the days of our direct intercourse, +but+ (_de_) +now tell you of
actually+ (_kai_) +with cries and tears+ (_klaion_), (so much has the
evil grown, in extent and in depth, so awfully apparent are its issues,
for this world and the world to come,) +as the enemies+, _the_ personal
enemies (_tous echthrous_), as if in a bad pre-eminence, +of the Cross
of our+ (_tou_) +Christ+, that Cross of whose virtues they can say
much, but whose power upon the soul they utterly ignore; +of+

Ver. 19. +whom the end is perdition+, ruin of the whole being,[2]
final and hopeless; +of whom the god is the belly+, (the sensual
appetites, the body's degradation, not its function,) while they claim
an exalted and special intimacy with the Supreme; +and their+ (_he_)
+glory+, their boast to see deeper and to soar higher than others, +is
in their shame; men whose mind is for+ (_phronouten_) +the things on
earth+, not, as they dream, or as at least they say, for the things of
an upper and super-corporeal world. No; their subtle doctrine of
spirit and body--what is it when tested in its issues? It is but a
philosophy of sin; a gossamer robe over the self-indulgence which has
come to be the real interest of the theorist, the real occupation of
his will. All is really, with them, of the earth, earthy. Far other
is the doctrine we have learned, and have striven to exemplify, at the
feet of Christ.

Ver. 20. For our city-home, the seat of our citizenship, and of the
conduct which it demands and inspires,[3] +subsists in the heavens+, is
always there, an antecedent and abiding fact (_huparchei_), on which we
are to act in life; in that heaven