Colossians 2:13-23

Amplified Bible

¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (worldliness, manner of life), God made you alive together with Christ, having [freely] forgiven us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled out the ^[a]certificate of debt consisting of ^[b]legal demands [which were in force] against us and which were hostile to us. And this certificate He has set aside and completely removed by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities [those supernatural forces of evil operating against us], He made a public example of them [exhibiting them as captives in His triumphal procession], having triumphed over them through ^[c]the cross.

¹⁶ Therefore let no one judge you in regard to food and drink or in regard to [the observance of] a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷ Such things are only a shadow of what is to come and they have only symbolic value; but the substance [the reality of what is foreshadowed] belongs to Christ. ¹⁸ Let no one defraud you of your prize [your freedom in Christ and your salvation] by insisting on mock humility and the worship of angels, going into detail about visions [he claims] he has seen [to justify his authority], puffed up [in conceit] by his unspiritual mind, ¹⁹ and not holding fast to the head [of the body, Jesus Christ], from whom the entire body, supplied and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth [that can come only] from God.

²⁰ If you have died with Christ to the ^[d]elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were still living in the world, do you submit to rules and regulations, such as, ²¹ “Do not handle [this], do not taste [that], do not [even] touch!”? ²² (these things all perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men.^{(A) 23} These practices indeed have the appearance [that popularly passes as that] of wisdom in self-made religion and mock humility and severe treatment of the body (asceticism), but are of no value against sinful indulgence [because they do not honor God].