Book of Common Prayer

⁸ Do not let anyone fool you by his wise words. They are not true. They are what men say. They are the teachings of this world and not what Christ says.

⁹ Christ has everything that God has.

¹⁰ And you, too, have everything when you are in him. He rules over every power and ruler.

¹¹ In Christ you were not circumcised by men's hands. But you were circumcised in Christ's way when all the wrong things you did in your bodies were taken away.

¹² You were buried with Christ when you were baptised. You were also raised with him to a new life when you were baptised. You were raised because you believed in the power of God who raised Christ from death.

¹³ You were dead because of the wrong things you had done, and because your lives had not been made clean. But God gave you life with Christ. He forgave you for all the wrong things you did.

¹⁴ He wiped out all the things that were written against us in the laws. He took the writing away and nailed it to a cross.

¹⁵ He won the victory over powers and rulers. He showed that they had no power at all. He showed the world his victory through the cross.

¹⁶ So do not let anyone say you are wrong about what you eat or drink, or about a feast, or a special holy day or a Sabbath day.

¹⁷ They are like a shadow of what is to come. But Christ is the body that makes the shadow.

¹⁸ Do not let anyone tell you that you are wrong and that to be humble you must worship angels. He talks about things he has not seen. He is very proud, but he has nothing to be proud of, because his thoughts come from his own mind.

¹⁹ He is not joined to the real head which is Christ. It is from him that the whole body receives strength and is held together by its joints and muscles. It is from him that the body grows as God makes it grow.

²⁰ Did you die with Christ? Then you left the teachings of this world. So why do you obey laws as if you were still living in this world?

²¹ I mean laws like this: "Do not touch that. Do not eat this. Do not put your hand on that."

²² All such things are gone as soon as they are used. These are laws made and taught by men.

²³ These laws look as if they are good laws. They make a show of doing things for God. They make people humble themselves in some way. They make people control their bodies in certain ways. But they have no power to keep people from doing all the wrong things they want to do.

¹² Jesus heard that John was put in prison, so he went to Galilee.

¹³ He left the town of Nazareth and went to live in the town of Capernaum. It is by the sea (of Galilee) in the district of Zebulun and Naphtali.

¹⁴ So what the prophet Isaiah said came true.

¹⁵ He talked about, `The country of Zebulun and the country of Naphtali, the road by the sea, the land on the other side of the Jordan River, Galilee where the people are not Jews.'

¹⁶ And he said, `The people who lived in darkness have seen a great Light. Light has come to those who lived in a land covered by the dark shadow of death.'

¹⁷ From then on, Jesus began to tell God's word to the people. He said, `Stop your wrong ways and turn back to God! The kingdom of heaven is here!'