7. You learned this from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow slave. He is a faithful servant of the Messiah on your behalf,
8. and he has told us about your love in the Spirit.
9. For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
10. so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.
11. May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy
12. giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
13. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves.
14. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Him.
15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16. For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth,the visible and the invisible,whether thrones or dominionsor rulers or authorities —all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.
18. He is also the head of the body, the church;He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to havefirst place in everything.