7. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
8. Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do,
9. yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus—
10. that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains.
11. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
12. I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you.