Colossians 2:1-15

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. ² I 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) 3} in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.^{(B) 4} I am saying this so that no one may deceive you with plausible arguments. ⁵ For 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

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

⁸ Watch 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) 9} For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, ¹⁰ and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.^{(F) 11} In 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) 12} when 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) 13} And 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) 14} erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ He disarmed^[g] the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.^(J)