Paul's Letter to the Colossians, Chapter 2
{2:1} For I desire to have you know how greatly I struggle for you,
and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in
the flesh; {2:2} that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit
together in love, and gaining all riches of the full assurance of
understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, both of the
Father and of Christ, {2:3} in whom are all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge hidden. {2:4} Now this I say that no one may delude you
with persuasiveness of speech. {2:5} For though I am absent in the
flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, rejoicing and seeing your
order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. {2:6} As
therefore you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, walk in him, {2:7}
rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, even as you
were taught, abounding in it in thanksgiving. {2:8} Be careful that
you don't let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not
after Christ. {2:9} For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells
bodily, {2:10} and in him you are made full, who is the head of all
principality and power; {2:11} in whom you were also 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 Christ; {2:12} having
been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with
him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
{2:13} You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of
your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us
all our trespasses, {2:14} wiping out the handwriting in ordinances
which was against us; and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it
to the cross; {2:15} having stripped the principalities and the
powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
{2:16} Let no one therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or
with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, {2:17}
which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's.
{2:18} Let no one rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and
worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not
seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, {2:19} and not holding
firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit
together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God's growth.
{2:20} If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as
though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
{2:21} "Don't handle, nor taste, nor touch" {2:22} (all of which
perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men?
{2:23} Which things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship,
and humility, and severity to the body; but aren't of any value
against the indulgence of the flesh.
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