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The Letter of Paul to the Colossians 2

2 I write these things because I want to inform you about how hard I am working. I work hard for you, for the fellow-believers who live in the city of Laodicea, and for all fellow-believers who have not met me in person. 2 I work this hard in order to encourage all of you who have not met me so that you unite yourselves together with love for each other. I want you to completely and confidently understand the secret that God had previously kept hidden. This secret is about the Messiah. 3 The Messiah is the one who knows all of God’s wonderful, wise plan. 4 I am telling you about this secret in order that no person who argues persuasively will be able to convince you to believe what is not true. 5 You can know that those who argue persuasively are wrong because I care about you and think about you, even though I am not with you in person. I am very happy to see that you are behaving properly and that you firmly believe in the Messiah.

6 Now that I have told you the truth about the good news, I want you to behave in a way that fits with how God has united you to the Messiah. You should keep behaving as you did when you accepted the Messiah Jesus the Lord. 7 Behaving in this way includes staying firmly united to him, just as a plant’s roots hold it firmly in place. It also includes depending completely on him, just as a house stands on its foundation. It also includes confidently trusting the Messiah, just as Epaphras taught you, and giving thanks more and more.

8 Be on the alert so that no one who tries to lead you away from the truth will succeed. Anyone who tries to lead you away will use human thinking that is meaningless and deceptive. Such a false message comes from what older generations teach younger generations and from what humans normally think about the world, not from the Messiah. 9 I mention the Messiah because he, a human, is fully God. 10 In addition, you have everything you need since God has united you to the Messiah, who rules over the spiritual beings, including every ruler and every authority. 11 When God united you to the Messiah, it was as if God the Father had circumcised you. I do not mean that a human physically cut flesh off you. Rather, instead of cutting off flesh, God removed your weak and sinful parts. God circumcised you in this way through what the Messiah accomplished. 12 Here is another way to understand what God has done for you: when they baptized you, it was as if you died and people buried you because God the Father included you when the Messiah died and people buried him. And it was as if God the Father brought you back to life because he included you when he brought the Messiah back to life. This happened because you believed that God the Father works powerfully, particularly when he brought the Messiah back to life. 13 You used to be spiritually dead, because you often sinned against God and because you were non-Jews and not part of God’s people. But God the Father brought you back to life spiritually because he included you when he brought the Messiah back to life. This means that he has forgiven us for all the wrong things we have done against him. 14 It was as if God had an official list of the debts we owe, which are our sins. When he forgave us, he wiped out that list of sins that counted against us, and he prevented it from coming between us and him. God accomplished this when the Messiah died on the cross, as surely as if he had nailed the list to the cross. 15 Moreover, God defeated the spiritual beings that rule the world, and he publicly showed that he defeated them, just as if he had paraded them around as prisoners. God did this when the Messiah died on the cross.

16 Because of these things that God has done for you, do not worry about what other people say you should do. They may have opinions about what to eat and what to drink. They may have opinions about what special days to observe, including days for worshipping God, days for celebrating when there is a new moon, or days for resting. 17 God used these things to point to what he had planned for the future, which is the coming of the Messiah himself. 18 You will meet some people who enjoy pretending to be humble and worshipping angels and who love to talk about amazing things that they have seen. They act like they are great—although without good reason, because they think only in human ways. Do not listen to these people who are trying to take away what God has ready to give to you. 19 These people are not remaining loyal to the Messiah. It is he who leads the church, just like people’s heads lead their bodies. The head directs how the whole body, each and every part, receives what it needs and how it works together. In this way the body grows. Just like that, the Messiah directs the church so that it grows as God wants it to grow.

20 It is as if you have died, because God included you when the Messiah died. This frees you from the spiritual beings that rule this world. So, you should not obey the rules that these people have given to you. Doing so would mean that you were really still part of this world. 21 These rules include commands like these: “Do not feel certain things!” “Do not try certain foods!” “Do not take hold of certain things!” 22 All such rules concern things that perish when people make use of them. Further, people, not God, teach and require these rules. 23 Following these rules may seem to be a wise thing to do for people who worship God the way they want to, who pretend to be humble, and who treat their bodies badly as part of their religion. However, following these rules will not help you stop sinning.

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