Colossians 1-2

Colossians 1

¹Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Timotheus the brother,

²to the saints in Colossae, and to the faithful brethren in Christ: Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!

³We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for you,

⁴having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love that is to all the saints,

⁵because of the hope that is laid up for you in the heavens, which ye heard of before in the word of the truth of the good news,

⁶which is present to you, as also in all the world, and is bearing fruit, as also in you, from the day in which ye heard, and knew the grace of God in truth;

⁷as ye also learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-servant, who is for you a faithful ministrant of the Christ,

⁸who also did declare to us your love in the Spirit.

⁹Because of this, we also, from the day in which we heard, do not cease praying for you, and asking that ye may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,

¹⁰to your walking worthily of the Lord to all pleasing, in every good work being fruitful, and increasing to the knowledge of God,

¹¹in all might being made mighty according to the power of His glory, to all endurance and long-suffering with joy.

¹²Giving thanks to the Father who did make us meet for the participation of the inheritance of the saints in the light,

¹³who did rescue us out of the authority of the darkness, and did translate us into the reign of the Son of His love,

¹⁴in whom we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of the sins,

¹⁵who is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation,

¹⁶because in him were the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things through him, and for him, have been created,

¹⁷and himself is before all, and the all things in him have consisted.

¹⁸And himself is the head of the body -- the assembly -- who is a beginning, a first-born out of the dead, that he might become in all things -- himself -- first,

¹⁹because in him it did please all the fulness to tabernacle,

²⁰and through him to reconcile the all things to himself -- having made peace through the blood of his cross -- through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens.

²¹And you -- once being alienated, and enemies in the mind, in the evil works, yet now did he reconcile,

²²in the body of his flesh through the death, to present you holy, and unblemished, and unblameable before himself,

²³if also ye remain in the faith, being founded and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the good news, which ye heard, which was preached in all the creation that is under the heaven, of which I became -- I Paul -- a ministrant.

²⁴I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and do fill up the things lacking of the tribulations of the Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the assembly,

²⁵of which I -- I did become a ministrant according to the dispensation of God, that was given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God,

²⁶the secret that hath been hid from the ages and from the generations, but now was manifested to his saints,

²⁷to whom God did will to make known what is the riches of the glory of this secret among the nations -- which is Christ in you, the hope of the glory,

²⁸whom we proclaim, warning every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus,

²⁹for which also I labour, striving according to his working that is working in me in power.

Colossians 2

¹For 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,

²that 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,

³in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge hid,

⁴and this I say, that no one may beguile you in enticing words,

⁵for 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;

⁶as, then, ye did receive Christ Jesus the Lord, in him walk ye,

⁷being rooted and built up in him, and confirmed in the faith, as ye were taught -- abounding in it in thanksgiving.

⁸See 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,

⁹because in him doth tabernacle all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,

¹⁰and ye are in him made full, who is the head of all principality and authority,

¹¹in 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,

¹²being 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.

¹³And you -- being dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh -- He made alive together with him, having forgiven you all the trespasses,

¹⁴having 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;

¹⁵having stripped the principalities and the authorities, he made a shew of them openly -- having triumphed over them in it.

¹⁶Let no one, then, judge you in eating or in drinking, or in respect of a feast, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths,

¹⁷which are a shadow of the coming things, and the body is of the Christ;

¹⁸let 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,

¹⁹and 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.

²⁰If, 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-- thou mayest not touch, nor taste, nor handle --

²²which are all for destruction with the using, after the commands and teachings of men,

²³which 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.