< Colossians 2 >
1 For I would have you know in how severe a struggle I am engaged on behalf of you and the brethren in Laodicea and of all who have not known me personally,
For I wish you to know how great a conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,
2 in order that their hearts may be cheered, they themselves being welded together in love and enjoying all the advantages of a reasonable certainty, till at last they attain the full knowledge of God's truth, which is Christ Himself.
that their hearts may be comforted, being united in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of the understanding, to the full knowledge of the secret of the God and Father, and of the Christ,
3 In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored up, hidden from view.
in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge hid,
4 I say this to prevent your being misled by any one's plausible sophistry.
and this I say, that no one may beguile you in enticing words,
5 For although, as you say, I am absent from you in body, yet in spirit I am present with you and am delighted to witness your good discipline and the solid front presented by your faith in Christ.
for if even in the flesh I am absent — yet in the spirit I am with you, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in regard to Christ;
6 As therefore you have received the Christ, even Jesus our Lord, live and act in vital union with Him;
as, then, ye did receive Christ Jesus the Lord, in him walk ye,
7 having the roots of your being firmly planted in Him, and continually building yourselves up in Him, and always being increasingly confirmed in the faith as you were taught it, and abounding in it with thanksgiving.
being rooted and built up in him, and confirmed in the faith, as ye were taught — abounding in it in thanksgiving.
8 Take care lest there be some one who leads you away as prisoners by means of his philosophy and idle fancies, following human traditions and the world's crude notions instead of following Christ.
See that no one shall be carrying you away as spoil through the philosophy and vain deceit, according to the deliverance of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to Christ,
9 For it is in Christ that the fulness of God's nature dwells embodied, and in Him you are made complete,
because in him doth tabernacle all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
10 and He is the Lord of all princes and rulers.
and ye are in him made full, who is the head of all principality and authority,
11 In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not performed by hand, when you threw off your sinful nature in true Christian circumcision;
in whom also ye were 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 the Christ,
12 having been buried with Him in your baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith produced within you by God who raised Him from among the dead.
being buried with him in the baptism, in which also ye rose with [him] through the faith of the working of God, who did raise him out of the dead.
13 And to you--dead as you once were in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your natural state--He has nevertheless given Life with Himself, having forgiven us all our transgressions.
And you — being dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh — He made alive together with him, having forgiven you all the trespasses,
14 The bond, with its requirements, which was in force against us and was hostile to us, He cancelled, and cleared it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross.
having blotted out the handwriting in the ordinances that is against us, that was contrary to us, and he hath taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross;
15 And the hostile princes and rulers He shook off from Himself, and boldly displayed them as His conquests, when by the Cross He triumphed over them.
having stripped the principalities and the authorities, he made a shew of them openly — having triumphed over them in it.
16 Therefore suffer no one to sit in judgement on you as to eating or drinking or with regard to a festival, a new moon or a sabbath.
Let no one, then, judge you in eating or in drinking, or in respect of a feast, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths,
17 These were a shadow of things that were soon to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
which are a shadow of the coming things, and the body [is] of the Christ;
18 Let no one defraud you of your prize, priding himself on his humility and on his worship of the angels, and taking his stand on the visions he has seen, and idly puffed up with his unspiritual thoughts.
let no one beguile you of your prize, delighting in humble-mindedness and [in] worship of the messengers, intruding into the things he hath not seen, being vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh,
19 Such a one does not keep his hold upon Christ, the Head, from whom the Body, in all its parts nourished and strengthened by its points of contact and its connections, grows with a divine growth.
and not holding the head, from which all the body — through the joints and bands gathering supply, and being knit together — may increase with the increase of God.
20 If you have died with Christ and have escaped from the world's rudimentary notions, why, as though your life still belonged to the world, do you submit to such precepts as
If, then, ye did die with the Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?
21 "Do not handle this;" "Do not taste that;" "Do not touch that other thing" --
— thou mayest not touch, nor taste, nor handle —
22 referring to things which are all intended to be used up and perish--in obedience to mere human injunctions and teachings?
which are all for destruction with the using, after the commands and teachings of men,
23 These rules have indeed an appearance of wisdom where self-imposed worship exists, and an affectation of humility and an ascetic severity. But not one of them is of any value in combating the indulgence of our lower natures.
which are, indeed, having a matter of wisdom in will-worship, and humble-mindedness, and neglecting of body — not in any honour, unto a satisfying of the flesh.