1 For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,
2 that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in charity and in all the riches of the fulfilled understanding to know the mystery of the God and Father and of the Christ;
3 in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 And this I say lest anyone should beguile you with enticing words.
5 For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
6 Therefore in the manner in which ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him,
7 rooted and built up in him and confirmed in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, according to the elements of the world, and not after Christ.
9 For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
10 and ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power.
11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of the Christ;
12 buried together with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 blotting out the bill of the decrees that was against us, which was contrary to us and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross {Gr. stauro – stake},
15 and having spoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
16 Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or of the new moon or of the sabbath days,
17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of the Christ.
18 Let no one govern you according to their own will under pretext of humility and religion of angels, intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind,
19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, fed and united by its joints and bonds, grows in the increase of God.
20 For if ye are dead with the Christ to the elements of the world, why, as though living unto the world, do ye decree rites,
21 touch not; taste not; handle not?
22 Which all perish with the using, because they are the commandments and doctrines of men,
23 which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship and humility and neglecting of the body, but they have absolutely no value against the appetites of the flesh.