Colossians 2
1 For I would have you know how great a contest I am waging for you and the brethren in Laodicea, and for all who have never seen my face.
And I wish you to know, what a struggle I have for you, and for them of Laodicea, and for the others who have not seen my face in the flesh;
2 May their hearts be comforted! May they be knit together in love! May they gain in all its riches the full assurance of their understanding! May they come to a perfect knowledge of the secret truth of God, which is Christ himself.
that their hearts may be comforted, and that they, by love, may come to all the riches of assurance, and to the understanding of the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father, and of the Messiah,
3 In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge!
in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.
4 And this I say, lest any one should mislead you with enticing words.
And this I say, lest any one should mislead you by the persuasiveness of words.
5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am with you in spirit, happy to note your discipline and the solid front of your faith in Christ.
For though I am separated from you in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit; and I rejoice at beholding your good order, and the stability of your faith in the Messiah.
6 As then you have received Jesus Christ, your Lord, in him live your lives;
As therefore ye have received Jesus the Messiah our Lord, walk ye in him,
7 since you are rooted in him, and in him continually built up. Be firmly established in the faith as you were taught it, and continually abound in it with thanksgiving.
strengthening your roots and building up yourselves in him, and establishing yourselves in the faith which ye have learned, in which may ye abound in thanksgiving.
8 Take care lest any man drag you away captive by his philosophy which is a vain deceit, following the traditions of men and the world’s crude notions, and not Christ.
Beware, lest any man make you naked by philosophy, and by vain deception, according to the doctrines of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to the Messiah,
9 For it is in Christ that all the fullness of deity dwells bodily,
in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Divinity corporeally.
10 and in him you have your fulness, and he is the Lord of all the principalities and powers.
And in him ye are also complete, because he is the head of all principalities and authorities.
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands; even in putting off your sensual nature in Christ’s own circumcision,
And in him ye have been circumcised with a circumcision without hands, by casting off the flesh of sins, by a circumcision of the Messiah.
12 when you were buried with him in baptism. In baptism also you were raised with him, through your faith in the energy of that God who raised him from the dead.
And ye have been buried with him, by baptism; and by it ye have risen with him; while ye believed in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And you also, at one time dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sensual nature, he has made alive together with himself. For he forgave us all our transgressions,
And you, who were dead in your sins, and by the uncircumcision of your flesh, he hath vivified with him; and he hath forgiven us all our sins:
14 blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that stood against us and was hostile to us, and took it out of our way, nailing it to his cross.
and, by his mandates, he blotted out the handwriting of our debts, which handwriting existed against us, and took it from the midst, and affixed it to his cross.
15 Principalities and powers he disarmed, and openly displayed them as his trophies, when he triumphed over them in the cross.
And, by yielding up his body, he showed contempt for principalities and authorities; and put them to shame, openly, in his own person.
16 Therefore do not permit any one to sit in judgment on you in regard to what you may eat or drink, or in regard to feast-days or new moons or sabbaths.
Let no one therefore disquiet you about food and drink, or about the distinctions of festivals, and new moons, and sabbaths;
17 These were a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
which were shadows of the things then future; but the body is the Messiah.
18 Let no man at his will defraud you of your prize through his false humility and worship of the angels, taking his stand on the visions he has seen, and vainly puffed up by his material mind;
And let no one wish, by abasing the mind, to bring you under bonds, that ye subject yourselves to the worship of angels; while he is prying into that which he hath not seen, and is vainly inflated in his fleshly mind,
19 instead of keeping connection with the Head from the whole body draws nourishment for all its needs by the joints which bind it; and is knit together, and grows with a divine growth.
and holdeth not the head, from which the whole body is framed and constructed, with joints and members, and groweth with the growth given of God.
20 If you died with Christ to the world’s rudimentary notions, why, as if you still lived in the world, do you submit yourselves to dogmatisms found on teachings and doctrines of men -
For if ye are dead with the Messiah from the rudiments of the world, why are ye judged as if ye were living in the world?
21 such as "Do not handle this," "You must not taste that," "Do not touch this" -
But, touch thou not, and taste thou not, and handle thou not:
22 all things which are intended to perish in the using?
for these things perish in the using; and they are the commandments and doctrines of men.
23 For these precepts, although they have a show of wisdom with their self-imposed devotions and fastings and bodily austerities, are of no real value against the indulgence of the carnal appetites.
And they seem to have a kind of wisdom, in a show of humility, and of the fear of God, and of not sparing the body; not in any thing of excellence, but in things subservient to the body.
