Warning Against Worldliness

4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions^[a] are ^(A)at war within you?^{[b] 2} You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask ^(B)wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Let No One Disqualify You

¹⁶ Therefore let no one ^(A)pass judgment on you ^(B)in questions of food and drink, or with regard to ^(C)a festival or ^(D)a new moon or a Sabbath. ^17 (E)These are a shadow of the things to come, but ^(F)the substance belongs to Christ. ¹⁸ Let no one ^(G)disqualify you, ^(H)insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, ^(I)going on in detail about visions,^{[a] (J)}puffed up without reason by ^(K)his sensuous mind, ¹⁹ and ^(L)not ^(M)holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

²⁰ If with Christ ^(N)you died to the ^(O)elemental spirits of the world, ^(P)why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— ^21 (Q)“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” ²² (^(R)referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to ^(S)human precepts and teachings? ²³ These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in ^(T)promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are ^(U)of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.