Colossians — Chapter 2

¹For I desire to have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;

²that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ,

³in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.

⁴This I say that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech.

⁵For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

⁶As therefore you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, walk in him,

⁷rooted and built up in him, and established in your faith, even as you were taught, abounding in it in thanksgiving.

⁸Be careful that you don`t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ.

⁹For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily,

¹⁰and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power;

¹¹in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;

¹²having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses;

¹⁴having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he has taken it out that way, nailing it to the cross;

¹⁵having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

¹⁶Let no man therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day,

¹⁷which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ`s.

¹⁸Let no man rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

¹⁹and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God`s growth.

²⁰If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,

²¹"Don`t handle, nor taste, nor touch"

²²(all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men?

²³Which things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but aren`t of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.