Colossians 2

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

2 For I want you to know how greatly I strive for you and for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face. ²I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ,^[a]^(A) ³in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.^(B) ⁴I am saying this so that no one may deceive you with plausible arguments. ⁵For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, and I rejoice to see your orderly conduct and the firmness of your faith in Christ.^(C)

Fullness of Life in Christ

⁶As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, ⁷rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.^(D)

⁸Watch out that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles^[b] of the world, and not according to Christ.^(E) ⁹For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, ¹⁰and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.^(F) ¹¹In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision,^[c] by the removal of the body^[d] of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ;^(G) ¹²when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.^(H) ¹³And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God^[e] made you^[f] alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses,^(I) ¹⁴erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵He disarmed^[g] the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.^(J)

¹⁶Therefore, do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food or^[h] drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths.^(K) ¹⁷These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the body belongs to Christ. ¹⁸Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, initiatory visions,^[i] puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking,^[j] ¹⁹and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with a growth that is from God.^(L)

Warnings against False Teachers

²⁰If with Christ you died to the elemental principles^[k] of the world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,^(M) ²¹“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? ²²All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings.^(N) ²³These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence.^[l]

Footnotes

2.2 Other ancient authorities read of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ
2.8 Or spirits
2.11 Gk a circumcision made without hands
2.11 Other ancient authorities add of the sins
2.13 Gk he
2.13 Other ancient authorities read made us or made
2.15 Or divested himself of
2.16 Other ancient authorities read and
2.18 Meaning of Gk uncertain
2.18 Gk by the mind of his flesh
2.20 Or spirits
2.23 Or are of no value, serving only to indulge the flesh

Colossians 2

The Message

2 I want you to realize that I continue to work as hard as I know how for you, and also for the Christians over at Laodicea. Not many of you have met me face-to-face, but that doesn’t make any difference. Know that I’m on your side, right alongside you. You’re not in this alone.

^2-4I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we’ve been shown the mystery! I’m telling you this because I don’t want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or “the Secret.”

⁵I’m a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me, but believe me, I’m on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct your affairs, and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ.

From the Shadows to the Substance

^6-7My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.

^8-10Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

^11-15Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.

^16-17So don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.

^18-19Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They’re a lot of hot air, that’s all they are. They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.

^20-23So, then, if with Christ you’ve put all that puffed-up and childish religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? “Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Don’t go near this!” Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and austere. But they’re just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE)

The Message (MSG)

Colossians 2 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition