1For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on behalf of you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,
2so that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love and unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God, namely Christ,
3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4I say this so that no one may deceive you with persuasive speech.
5For though indeed I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, rejoicing and beholding your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
6Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him,
7having been rooted and being built up in him and being established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing in thanksgiving.
8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elemental principles of the world and not according to Christ;
9because in him dwells all the fullness of deity bodily,
10and you are filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority,
11in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,
12having been buried with him in baptism, in which also you were raised together through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead;
13And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
14having wiped out the handwritten record against us with its decrees, which was hostile to us, and he has taken it away out of the midst, having nailed it to the cross;
15having stripped off the rulers and the authorities, he made a public spectacle of them in boldness, having triumphed over them in it.
16Therefore let no one judge you in food and in drink, or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,
17which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body belongs to Christ.
18Let no one disqualify you, delighting in humility and the worship of angels, dwelling on things he has seen, groundlessly puffed up by the mind of his flesh,
19and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God.
20If you died with Christ from the elemental principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you submit to decrees:
21“Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch”—
22which things are all destined for decay by their use—according to the commandments and teachings of men?
23which things indeed have a reputation of wisdom in self-imposed worship and humility and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
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