Philemon 1:10-17

¹⁰I beg you for my child, whom I have fathered in my bonds, Onesimus, ¹¹who once was useless to you, but now is useful to you and to me; ¹²I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, ¹³whom I wanted to keep with me, that in your behalf he might minister to me in the bonds of the gospel. ¹⁴But I was willing to do nothing without your consent, that your goodness would not be as of necessity, but of free will. ¹⁵For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while, that you would have him forever, ¹⁶no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, specially to me, but how much rather to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. ¹⁷If then you count me a partner, receive him as you would receive me.