¹ For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and [for] those at Laodicea and [for] as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,

² that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in charity and in all [the] riches of the fulfilled understanding to know the mystery of the God and Father and of the Christ;

³ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

⁴ And this I say lest anyone should beguile you with enticing words.

⁵ For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

⁶ Therefore in the manner in which ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk ye in him,

⁷ rooted and built up in him and confirmed in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

⁸ Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, according to the elements of the world, and not after Christ.

⁹ For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,

¹⁰ and ye are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power.

¹¹ In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of the Christ;

¹² buried together with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead.

¹³ And you, being dead in sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses,

¹⁴ blotting out the bill of the decrees that was against us, which was contrary to us and took it out of the way, nailing it to his stake,

¹⁵ [and] having spoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

¹⁶ Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or of [the] new moon or of [the] sabbath [days],

¹⁷ which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of the Christ.

¹⁸ Let no one govern you according to their own will under [pretext of] humility and religion of angels, intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind,

¹⁹ and not holding fast [to] the Head, from whom all the body, fed and united by its joints and bonds, grows in the increase of God.

²⁰ For if ye are dead with the Christ to the elements of the world, why, as though living unto the world, do ye decree rites,

²¹ touch not; taste not; handle not?

²² Which all perish with the using, because [they are] the commandments and doctrines of men,

²³ which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship and humility and neglecting of the body, but they have absolutely no value against the appetites of the flesh.: