7. For we have great joy and encouragement on account of your love, because the hearts of the saints are refreshed through you, brother.
8. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you to do that which is proper,
9. yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ—
10. I appeal to you on behalf of my son Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment,
11. who in the past was unprofitable to you, but now he is profitable to you and to me.
12. I have sent him back. Therefore receive him as my own heart.
13. I wanted to keep him with me, so that in your place he might serve me during my imprisonment for the gospel.
14. But without your consent I would do nothing, so that your goodness would not be forced, but given willingly.
15. Perhaps this was why he departed for a while, that you might receive him forever,
16. no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
17. If then you consider me a partner, receive him as you would me.