Epistle to the Romans (Long Version)

For it is not my desire that you should please men, but God, just as you already do please Him. For I will never again have such an opportunity to attain to God; nor will you, if you are now silent, ever be entitled to the honor of a better work. For if you are silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if you show your love to my flesh, I shall have to run my race again. Pray, then, do not seek to grant me any greater favor than that I be sacrificed to God, while the altar is still prepared; that, being gathered together in love, you may sing praise to the Father, through Christ Jesus, that God has deemed me, the bishop of Syria, worthy to be sent from the east to the west, and to become a martyr for His own precious sufferings, so as to pass from the world to God, that I may rise again unto Him.