7. For I have experienced much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the holy ones have been refreshed by you, brother.
8. Therefore, although I have the full right in Christ to order you to do what is proper,
9. I rather urge you out of love, being as I am, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus.
10. I urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment,
11. who was once useless to you but is now useful to [both] you and me.
12. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.
13. I should have liked to retain him for myself, so that he might serve me on your behalf in my imprisonment for the gospel,
14. but I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.