1. For I want you to know how great a struggle I am having for you and for those in Laodicea and all who have not seen me face to face,
2. that their hearts may be encouraged as they are brought together in love, to have all the richness of fully assured understanding, for the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ,
3. in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4. I say this so that no one may deceive you by specious arguments.
5. For even if I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing as I observe your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
6. So, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him,
7. rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
8. See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elemental powers of the world and not according to Christ.
9. For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily,
10. and you share in this fullness in him, who is the head of every principality and power.
11. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not administered by hand, by stripping off the carnal body, with the circumcision of Christ.
12. You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
13. And even when you were dead [in] transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions;
14. obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross;
15. despoiling the principalities and the powers, he made a public spectacle of them, leading them away in triumph by it.
16. Let no one, then, pass judgment on you in matters of food and drink or with regard to a festival or new moon or sabbath.
17. These are shadows of things to come; the reality belongs to Christ.