To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,

the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—

knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

Closing Exhortations and Blessing

Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.