1 For I wish you to know what a great struggle I have for you and those in Laodikeia, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,
2 in order that their hearts might be encouraged, being knit together in love, and to all riches of the entire confirmation of understanding, to a true knowledge of the secret of Elohim, and of the Father, and of the Messiah,
3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 And this I say, so that no one deceives you with enticing words.
5 For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your belief in Messiah.
6 Therefore, as you accepted Messiah יהושע the Master, walk in Him,
7 having been rooted and built up in Him, and established in the belief, as you were taught, overflowing in it with thanksgiving.
8 See to it that no one makes a prey of you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary matters of the world, and not according to Messiah.
9 Because in Him dwells all the completeness of the Mightiness bodily,
10 and you have been made complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and authority.
11 In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Messiah,
12 having been buried with Him in immersion, in which you also were raised with Him through the belief in the working of Elohim, who raised Him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having blotted out the certificate of debt against us – by the dogmas – which stood against us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the stake.
15 Having stripped the principalities and the authorities, He made a public display of them, having prevailed over them in it.
16 Let no one therefore judge you in eating or in drinking, or in respect of a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths –
17 which are a shadow of what is to come – but the Body of the Messiah.
18 Let no one deprive you of the prize, one who takes delight in false humility and worship of messengers, taking his stand on what he has not seen, puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the Body – nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments – grows with the growth of Elohim.
20 If, then, you died with Messiah from the elementary matters of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations:
21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle” –
22 which are all to perish with use – according to the commands and teachings of men?
23 These indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed worship, humiliation and harsh treatment of the body – of no value at all, only for satisfaction of the flesh.