For I wish you to know how great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and as many as have not seen my face in flesh;
that their hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding unto full knowledge of the mystery of God,
in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And this I say that no one may beguile you by persuasive speech.
For if even in the flesh I am absent, yet I am with you in the spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
As therefore ye received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, in him walk,
rooted and built up in him, and confirmed in the faith, even as ye were taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
See that there shall be no one that leadeth you a prey through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.
For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;
and ye are complete in him who is the head of all principality and authority;
in whom also ye were circumcised with circumcision not wrought by hand, in the putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of the Christ;
buried with him in baptism, in which ye were also raised with [him] through faith in the working of God that raised him out of the dead.
And you, being dead in offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he quickened you together with him, having forgiven us all the offenses,
having blotted out the handwriting in ordinances [that was] against us, which was contrary to us; and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to his cross;
having stripped the principalities and the authorities, he made show openly, triumphing over them in it.
Let none therefore judge you in eating and in drinking, or in respect of feast or new moon or Sabbaths,
which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ.
Let no one defraud you of your prize, doing his will in humility and worship of the angels, intruding into things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh,
and not holding fast the head, from whom all the body, ministered to and knit together by the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God.
If ye died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as alive in [the] world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances?
Handle not, neither taste, nor even touch
(which are all for destruction in the using), according to the injunctions and trainings of men;
which have a reputation indeed of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and unsparingness of [the] body, not in any honour to satisfying of the flesh.