Colossians 2:11-17

EasyEnglish Bible

¹¹ Also, because you are united with Christ, you truly belong to God's people. No person has circumcised you to show this. It is like Christ himself has circumcised you, to show that you belong to God. It is like he has cut off your old nature which made you do bad things.^{[a] 12} When they baptized you, it was like God buried you with Christ.^[b] And God also raised you to a new life with Christ. You believed that God has great power to do that. You believed that God raised Jesus to life after he died. Because you believed, God raised you to have a new life.

¹³ At one time, you were dead in your spirits, because of the wrong things that you did. God had not cut off your old nature. You did not belong to his people. But now God has caused you to become alive with Christ. He has forgiven us for all the wrong things that we have done. ¹⁴ We are guilty of many wrong things that are against God's laws. But Christ died on the cross on our behalf. He paid the debt of our sins. It is like he has destroyed the list of all the debts that we should pay to God. ¹⁵ On the cross, Christ took away the power of the bad spirits that have authority to rule people. He showed clearly that he himself has won against them. Now everyone can see that those bad spirits have no power.

Do not obey human ideas

¹⁶ Some people may tell you that it is wrong for you to eat or to drink certain things. Or they make rules about special festival days, about new moons, or about the Jewish days for rest. Do not agree with people like that. ¹⁷ Rules like that are only like shadows of real things that would happen later. But now we have what is real, Christ himself!