Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy the brother, to the saints in Colosse and the faithful brothers in Christ. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father.

We thank the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints, on account of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the true word of the gospel which is present with you as also in all the world, and is fruitful and increases, as also with you, from the day that you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; as you learned from Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ for you, and who made known to us your love in the Spirit.

Therefore we also, from the day that we heard, cease not to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthily of the Lord in all that is pleasing [to him], being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has made us fit for a portion in the inheritance

of the saints in light, who delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, who is the likeness of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, for by him were all things created which are in heaven and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or principalities, or powers. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist, and he is the head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that he might himself be preëminent in all things, for in him [God] was well pleased that all fullness should dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, through him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens. And you, formerly alienated and enemies in mind by evil works, he has now reconciled by the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blame and without fault before him, if indeed you continue founded and established in the faith, and not moved from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached in all the creation under heaven; of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

Now I rejoice in sufferings for you, and supply the deficiencies of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the church, of which I was made a minister according to the dispensation of God given me for you, to complete the word of God, the mystery concealed from ages and from generations, but now it has been manifested to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; for which I also labor, striving with his power which operates in me with power.

For I wish you to know what a conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that your hearts may be comforted, being united in love and [raised] to all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But I say this that no one may mislead you with persuasive words. For if I am absent in the flesh, still I am present in spirit with you, rejoicing and beholding

your order and the strength of your faith in Christ. As therefore you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, founded and built up in him, and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See that no one leads you off as a prey through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to Christ, for in him dwells all the fullness of the Deity bodily and you are made perfect in him, who is the head of all principality and power, in whom you are also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, with the putting off of the body of the flesh, with the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you have also been raised together through the effectual faith of God who raised him from the dead; and you being dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made you alive with him, having forgiven us all sins, having blotted out what was written by the hand in ordinances which was against us, and has taken it away from between [us], having nailed it to the cross; [and] having subjugated principalities and powers, he made a public exhibition of them, leading them in triumph by it.

Let no man therefore judge you in eating and in drinking, or in respect to a feast, or new moon, or sabbath, which are a shadow of things that were to come; but the body is Christ's. Let no one wishing [it] deprive you of your reward by humility and a worship of angels, intruding into what he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his carnal mind, and not holding the head, from which all the body being supplied and compacted by means of joints and tendons grows with an increase of God. If therefore you died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why do you practice ordinances as living in the world;—you shall not touch, you shall not taste, you shall not feel,—all which are to perish in the using—according to the commandments and instructions of men? Which have an appearance of wisdom in voluntary worship and humiliation, and in a rigorous treatment of the body, [which is held] in no respect for the surfeiting of the flesh.

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