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.

since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints;

which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth;

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

who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.

Preeminence of Christ

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy;

giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

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

in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Reconciled in Christ

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,

in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—

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.

Sacrificial Service for Christ

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,

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.

To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.

Not Philosophy but Christ

For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words.

For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,

Not Legalism but Christ

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,

which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.