What great care Paul took for all congregations. He exhorts them to be steadfast in Christ, and to beware of false teachers and worldly wisdom. He describes the false prophets.

2 I would you knew what fighting I have for your sakes and for the people of Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen me in the flesh, ² that their hearts may be encouraged, and knit together in love and in all the riches of a full understanding, to know the mystery of God the Father and of Christ, ³ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

⁴ And I say, for fear that someone should beguile you with enticing words ⁵ (for though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am present with you in the spirit, joying and beholding the order that you keep and your steadfast faith in Christ) – ⁶ as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, even so walk, ⁷ rooted and built in him, and steadfast in the faith, as you have learned. And abound therein in giving thanks.

⁸ Beware lest any man come and rob you through philosophy and vain deceit, through the precepts of men, and observances after the world, and not after Christ. ⁹ For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, ¹⁰ and you are complete in him, who is the head of all rule and power. ¹¹ In him also you are circumcised, with the circumcision that is made without hands, by putting off the sinful body of the flesh through the circumcision that is in Christ, ¹² in that you are buried with him through baptism; in whom you are also risen again through faith, which is wrought by the operation of God, who raised him from death.

¹³ And you who were dead in sin through the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has quickened to life with him, and has forgiven us all our trespasses. ¹⁴ And he has put out the handwriting that was against us, contained in the written law: he has taken it out of the way and has fastened it to his cross, ¹⁵ and has spoiled rule and power, and has made a show of them openly, and has triumphed over them in his own person.

¹⁶ Let no man therefore trouble your consciences about meat and drink, or in respect of a holy day, such as the holy day of the new moon or of the Sabbath days. ¹⁷ These are nothing but shadows of things to come, but the substance is in Christ. ¹⁸ Let no man make you shoot at a wrong mark, who, following his own imagination, walks in the humbleness and holiness of angels, things which he never saw, senselessly puffed up with his fleshly mind, ¹⁹ and who does not hold to the Head, from whom all the body, by joints and ligaments, receives nourishment, and is knit together, and grows with the growth that comes of God.

²⁰ Therefore, if you are dead with Christ to the observances of the world, why, as though you yet lived in the world, are you led by the precepts of those who say, ²¹ Touch not, taste not, handle not? ²² All these things do hurt to men because of the abuse of them, which abuse comes only of the commandments and doctrines of men – ²³ which things have an outward show of wisdom, in self-chosen holiness and humbleness, and in that they do not spare the body, and pay no regard to the needs of the flesh.