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The Letter of Paul to the Colossians 1

1 I, Paul, write this letter to you, and Timothy our fellow believer is with me. God sent me to represent the Messiah Jesus, because that is what God chose to do. 2 I send this letter to you who are God’s people and faithful fellow believers united to the Messiah, who live in the city of Colossae. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus the Messiah continue to be kind to you and make you peaceful.

3 We pray for you very often. When we do, we thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, 4 because have learned that you trust in the Messiah Jesus and that you love all God’s people. 5 You do these things because you are confidently waiting for everything that God is keeping for you in heaven. You first learned about all that God has for you when you heard the true message, which is the good news about the Messiah. 6 Just as you heard and believed this good news in Colossae, increasing numbers of people in many places are also hearing and believing it. These people are living in a different way now, just as you have been living in a different way since you first learned about it and truly experienced how God acts kindly toward us. 7 This is what Epaphras told you would happen. He works with us for the Messiah, and we love him. He faithfully serves the Messiah as our representative. 8 He told us that you love all God’s people, just as God’s Spirit has empowered you to do.

9 Because of everything that Epaphras told us, since the time when he first told us about you, we have joined him in consistently praying for you. When we pray for you, we ask God to show you everything that he wants you to do and to make you able to understand everything that God’s Spirit is teaching you. 10 We have been praying that you know what God wants so that you can live in a way that honors the Lord and pleases him in every way. When you live this way, you will be doing every sort of good thing and continually knowing God better. 11 As you live this way, God will greatly strengthen you to be able to patiently endure in all situations, and to do so joyfully. God can strengthen you greatly because he is gloriously powerful. 12 Then you will continually thank God our Father, because he has made you worthy to take part in everything that he has to give to his people when they are with him.

13 God our Father has delivered us from the evil one, who used to control us, and he has given us to his Son, whom he loves, so that now we can obey his Son. 14 Because we are united to his Son, God has set us free; that is, he has forgiven our sins. 15 God’s Son perfectly reveals who God is, even though no one can see God. The Son existed before God created anything, and he has first place over everything that God has created. 16 You can know that the Son existed before anything else existed and has first place over everything because the Father and the Son together created everything that exists. This includes everything in heaven and everything on earth, and everything that we can see and everything that we cannot see, including the spiritual beings such as thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities. The Father and the Son together created everything, and everything exists to honor the Son. 17 The Son existed before any of creation existed, and he sustains and connects all of it. 18 In regard to the church, that is, all believers, he rules over it as people’s heads rule over their bodies. He made it possible for the church to begin when he was the first person to live again after dying, never to die again. Because of these things about him, he is greater and more important than anything and anybody else. 19 The Son rules over everything because the Son is fully God, just as the Father gladly willed him to be. 20 God the Father also gladly chose to work through the Son to reconcile to himself everything and every person that he created in the whole universe. God did this through his Son when his Son died on the cross, which made everything peaceful between God and his creation.

21 Before you believed in the Messiah, you did not want to be close to God, and you were hostile to him because everything you thought and did was evil. 22 But that has all changed now that you believe in Jesus! God the Father has repaired the relationship between himself and you by working through his Son when his Son became human and died. God the Father repaired the relationship so that you can dwell with him as people who are completely free from sin. 23 This is all true about you as long as you continue confidently to believe in the Messiah, and as long as you do not give up confidently hoping for God to do what he has promised in the good news that you heard and that people all over the world have heard. I, Paul, serve God by proclaiming to people this same good news.

24 At the present time I suffer cheerfully because it is for your benefit. I am suffering physically to complete my part of the suffering that the Messiah began on behalf of his people, the church, which is like the Messiah’s own body. 25 God called me to serve his church, and he appointed me specifically to carry out his plan that concerns you. My part of this plan is to proclaim to you non-Jews the full message from God. 26 God kept this message a secret, concealing it from people for a long time. But now he has made the message known to his people. 27 God has been wanting to tell his people this very glorious message that was secret, which applies to non-Jews as well as to Jews. The secret is that the Messiah is united to you non-Jews, which means that you can confidently expect to become glorious beings like the Messiah. 28 This is the Messiah whom we announce to everyone. When we talk about him, we warn and teach each person as wisely as we can. We do these things so that each of these people may become spiritually mature in each person’s union with the Messiah. 29 I work hard in all that I do in order to accomplish that goal. I can do this because the Messiah is powerfully enabling me to do it.

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