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¹ For I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;² that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, [even] Christ,³ in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.

⁴ This I say, that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech.⁵ For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joying and seeing your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.⁶ As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk in him,⁷ rooted and built up in him, and established in your faith, even as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.⁸ Take heed lest there shall be any one that makes spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ:⁹ for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,¹⁰ and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power:¹¹ in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;¹² having been buried with him in baptism, wherein you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³ And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, he made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses;¹⁴ having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;¹⁵ having despoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

¹⁶ Let no man therefore judge you in meat and in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day:¹⁷ which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's.¹⁸ Let no man rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshiping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,¹⁹ and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increasing with the increase of God.²⁰ If you died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,²¹ Don't handle, nor taste, nor touch²² (all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men?²³ Which things indeed have a show of wisdom in do-it-yourself religion, and humility, and severity to the body; [but are] not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.