Moffatt(i)
9 I prefer to appeal to you on the ground of love. Well then, as Paul the old man, who now-a-days is a prisoner for Christ Jesus,
10 I appeal to you on behalf of my spiritual son born while I was in prison. It is Onesimus!
11 Once you found him a worthless character, but now-a-days he is worth something to you and me.
12 I am sending him back to you, and parting with my very heart.
13 I would have liked to keep him beside me, that as your deputy he might serve me during my imprisonment for the gospel;
14 but I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that your goodness to me might come of your own free will, without any appearance of constraint.
15 Perhaps this was why you and he were parted for a while, that you might get him back for good,
16 no longer a mere slave but something more than a slave — a beloved brother; especially dear to me but how much more to you as a man and as a Christian!