For this reason we also, from the day we first received these tidings, have never ceased to pray for you and to entreat that you may be filled with a clear knowledge of His will accompanied by thorough wisdom and discernment in spiritual things;

so that your lives may be worthy of the Lord and perfectly pleasing to Him, while you exhibit the results of right action of every sort and grow into a fuller knowledge of God.

Moreover He is the Head of His Body, the Church. He is the Beginning, the Firstborn from among the dead, in order that He Himself may in all things occupy the foremost place.

For it was the Father's gracious will that the whole of the divine perfections should dwell in Him.

if, indeed, you are still firmly holding to faith as your foundation, without ever shifting from your hope that rests on the Good News that you have heard, which has been proclaimed in the whole creation under Heaven, and in which I Paul have been appointed to serve.

I have been appointed to serve the Church in the position of responsibility entrusted to me by God for your benefit, so that I may fully deliver God's Message--

to whom it was His will to make known how vast a wealth of glory for the Gentile world is implied in this truth--the truth that 'Christ is in you, the hope of glory.'

Him we preach, admonishing every one and instructing every one, with all possible wisdom, so that we may bring every one into God's presence, made perfect through Christ.

in order that their hearts may be cheered, they themselves being welded together in love and enjoying all the advantages of a reasonable certainty, till at last they attain the full knowledge of God's truth, which is Christ Himself.

For it is in Christ that the fulness of God's nature dwells embodied, and in Him you are made complete,

These were a shadow of things that were soon to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

"Do not handle this;" "Do not taste that;" "Do not touch that other thing" --

If however you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, enthroned at God's right hand.

Give your minds to the things that are above, not to the things that are on the earth.

Therefore put to death your earthward inclinations--fornication, impurity, sensual passion, unholy desire, and all greed, for that is a form of idolatry.

It is on account of these very sins that God's anger is coming,

But now you must rid yourselves of every kind of sin--angry and passionate outbreaks, ill-will, evil speaking, foul-mouthed abuse--so that these may never soil your lips.

In that new creation there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free man, but Christ is everything and is in all of us.

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and let it be through Him that you give thanks to God the Father.

Children be obedient to your parents in everything; for that is right for Christians.

For you know that it is from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. Christ is the Master whose bondservants you are.

Masters, deal justly and equitably with your slaves, knowing that you too have a Master in Heaven.

And pray at the same time for us also, that God may open for us a door for preaching, for us to tell the truth concerning Christ for the sake of which I am even a prisoner.

Let your language be always seasoned with the salt of grace, so that you may know how to give every man a fitting answer.

And for this very purpose I send him to you that you may know how we are faring; and that he may cheer your hearts.

Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, sends greetings to you, always wrestling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand firm--Christians of ripe character and of clear conviction as to everything which is God's will.

Christian greetings to the brethren at Laodicea, especially to Nymphas, and to the Church that meets at their house.