Warnings against False Teachers

²⁰ If with Christ you died to the elemental principles^[a] of the world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,^(A)

⁸ Watch out that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles^[a] of the world, and not according to Christ.^(A)

³ So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental principles^[a] of the world.^(A)

¹⁶ Therefore, do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food or^[a] drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths.^(A)

¹⁹ We know that we are God’s children and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.^(A)

Good Stewards of God’s Grace

4 Since, therefore, Christ suffered in the flesh,^[a] arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin),^{(A) 2} so as to live for the rest of your time in the flesh no longer by human desires but by the will of God.^{(B) 3} You have already spent enough time in doing what the gentiles like to do, living in debauchery, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.^(C)

¹⁴ erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

⁹ Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food,^[a] which have not benefited those who observe them.^(A)

¹⁹ For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ,^{(A) 20} and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God,^[a] who loved me and gave himself for me.^(B)

⁴ In the same way, my brothers and sisters, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.^{(A) 5} For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.^{(B) 6} But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are enslaved in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the written code.^(C)