ULT COL Chapter 2

2 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and the ones at Laodicea and as many as have not seen my face in the flesh 2 so that their hearts might be encouraged, having been brought together in love and into all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, into knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ, 3 in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. 4 I say this so that no one might deceive you with persuasive speech. 5 For even if I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, rejoicing and seeing your good order and the strength of your faith in Christ.

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, 7 being rooted and built up in him and confirmed in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8 Beware lest someone will be the one taking you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elemental teaching of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and you are filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority, 11 in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands in the removal of the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism and in whom you were raised up through faith in the power of God, the one having raised him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses,[fn] 14 having canceled the written record of the decrees against us, which were opposed to us, and he has taken it out from our midst, having nailed it to the cross; 15 having stripped the rulers and the authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, having triumphed over them in it.

16 Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in food or in drink or in regard to a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of the things coming, but the body is of Christ. 18 Let no one delighting in false humility and worship of the angels deprive you of your prize, standing on things he has seen, becoming puffed up without cause by the mind of his flesh 19 and not holding fast to the head, from which the whole body, being supplied and held together through the joints and ligaments, grows with the growth from God.

20 If you died with Christ from the elemental principles of the world, why, as living in the world, are you being subjected to its decrees: 21 “You may not handle, nor taste, nor touch!” 22 which are all for destruction with the use, according to the commands and teachings of men; 23 which, having indeed a word of wisdom in self-made religion and false humility and severity of the body, are not of any value against indulgence of the flesh.

Some older versions read, having forgiven you all of your trespasses.

COL C1 C2 C3 C4