Yes, He is the exact likeness of the unseen God, His first-born Son who existed before any created thing,

for it was through Him that everything was created in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen, thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him.

So if you have been raised to life in fellowship with Christ, keep on seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

So as God's own chosen people, consecrated and dearly loved, you must once for all clothe yourselves with tenderheartedness, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience; you must keep on

Let the message of Christ continue to live in you in all its wealth of wisdom; keep on teaching it to one another and training one another in it with thankfulness, in your hearts singing praise to God with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

It is God who has delivered us out of the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of His dearly loved Son,

Take care that nobody captures you by the idle fancies of his so-called philosophy, following human tradition and the world's crude notions instead of Christ.

For it is in Him that all the fullness of Deity continues to live embodied,

Yes, He is the Head of the church as His body. For He is the beginning, the first-born among the dead, so that He alone should stand first in everything.

which reached you, and since it is bearing fruit and growing among you, just as it is all over the world, from the day you first heard of God's favor and in reality came to know it,

Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as work for the Lord and not for men,

for you were buried with Him in baptism and raised to life with Him through your faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead.

We are proclaiming Him, warning everyone and teaching everyone with ample wisdom, in order to present to God everyone mature through union with Christ.

So once for all put to death your lower, earthly nature with respect to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is real idolatry.

This is why, ever since I heard of it, I have never ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you, through full wisdom and spiritual insight, with a clear knowledge of His will,

Stop letting anyone pass judgment on you in matters of eating and drinking, or in the matter of annual or monthly feasts or sabbaths.

he is the very one who told me of the love awakened in you by the Spirit.

And whatever you say or do, let it all be done with reference to the Lord Jesus, and through Him continue to give thanks to God the Father.

as you learned it from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow-slave. As a faithful minister of Christ for me

So, just as you once accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue living in vital union with Him,

Yes, although you were dead through your shortcomings and were physically uncircumcised, God made you live again through fellowship with Christ. He graciously forgave us all our shortcomings,

I am now glad to be suffering for you, and in my own person I am filling in what is lacking in Christ's sufferings for His body, that is, the church.

You must persevere in prayer and by this means stay wide awake when you give thanks.

You married women must continue to live in subordination to your husbands, for this is your Christian duty.

to whom God has chosen to make known how glorious are the riches of this open secret among the heathen, namely, Christ in you the hope of your glorification.

and you will always be thanking the Father who has qualified you to share the lot of His people in the realm of light.

So you, who were once estranged from Him, and hostile in disposition as shown by your wrongdoings, He has now reconciled

Let the peace that Christ can give keep on acting as umpire in your hearts, for you were called to this state as members of one body. And practice being thankful.

Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Timothy,

canceled the note that stood against us, with its requirements, and has put it out of our way by nailing it to the cross.

forbearing one another and freely forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; just as the Lord has freely forgiven you, so must you also do.

by whom we possess the ransom from captivity, which means the forgiveness of our sins.

Stop lying to one another, for you have stripped off the old self with its practices,

And through your union with Him you once received, not a hand-performed circumcision but one performed by Christ, in stripping you of your lower nature,

and that through Him He might reconcile to Himself all things on earth or in heaven, making this peace through the blood He shed On His cross.

It is so because it was the divine choice that all the divine fullness should dwell in Him,

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

I am saying this to keep anyone from misleading you by persuasive arguments.

He thus stripped the principalities and dominions of power and made a public display of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Practice occupying your minds with the things above, not with the things on earth;

So He existed before all things, and through Him all things are held together.

But now you too must once for all put them all aside -- anger, rage, malice, and abusive, filthy talk from your lips.

Practice living prudently in your relations with outsiders, making the most of your opportunities.

in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored up.

and have put on the new self which is in the process of being made new in the likeness of its Creator, so that you may attain a perfect knowledge of Him.

so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord to His full satisfaction, by perennially bearing fruit in every good enterprise and by a steady growth in fuller knowledge of God;

Slaves, practice obedience to your earthly masters in everything, not as though they were watching you and as though you were merely pleasing men, but with sincerity of heart, because you fear the Lord.

Always let your conversation be seasoned with salt, that is, with winsomeness, so that you may know how to make a fitting answer to everyone.

You too used to practice these sins, when you used to live that sort of life.

that their hearts may be encouraged, by having been knit together in love and by having atoned to the full assurance of understanding, so that they may finally reach the fullest knowledge of the open secret, Christ Himself,

When Christ, who is our life, appears, you too will appear to be glorified in fellowship with Him.

In this new relation there is no Greek and Jew, no circumcised and uncircumcised, no barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is everything and in us all.

for you have died, and your life is now hidden in God through your fellowship with Christ.

to the consecrated and faithful brothers at Colossae who are in union with Christ: spiritual blessing and peace to you from God our Father.

and through union with Him you too are filled with it. He is the Head of all principalities and dominions.

For though I am far away in person, still I am with you in spirit, and I am glad to note your fine order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

For this I am toiling and struggling by His active energy which is mightily working in me.

My dearly loved Tychicus, a faithful minister and my fellow-servant in the Lord's work, will tell you all about me.

I am sending him to you for the express purpose of letting you know my circumstances, and of cheering your hearts;

For I can testify how great his toiling for you is and for the brothers in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

he is accompanied by Onesimus, a faithful and dearly loved brother, who is one of your own number. They will tell you everything that is going on here.

So does Jesus who is called Justus. These are the only converts from Judaism that are fellow-workers with me here for the kingdom of God, who have proved a real comfort to me.

For the man who wrongs another will be paid back the wrong he has done; and there are no exceptions.

Masters, you must practice doing the right and square things by your slaves, for you know that you have a Master in heaven.

Such practices have the outward expression of wisdom, with their self-imposed devotions, their self-humiliation, their torturings of the body, but they are of no value; they really satisfy the lower nature.

When this letter has been read to you, have it read to the church at Laodicea too, and see to it that you too read the one that is coming from Laodicea.

for you know that it is from the Lord that you are going to get your pay in the form of an inheritance; so keep on serving Christ the Lord.

These were but the shadow of what was coming; the reality belongs to Christ.

Remember me to the brothers in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church that meets at her house.

And tell Archippus, "See to it that you continue until you fill full your ministry which you received in the Lord's work."

Such a person is not continuing in connection with the Head, from which the whole body, when supplied and united through its joints and sinews, grows with a growth that God produces.

This farewell greeting is in my own hand, from Paul. Remember that I am still a prisoner. Spiritual blessing be with you.

which refer to things that perish in the using, in accordance with human rules and teachings?

in order to make it evident why I have to tell it.

"You must not handle," "You must not taste," "You must not touch,"

Children, practice obedience to your parents in everything, for this is acceptable in Christians.

Every time we pray for you we thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Stop letting anyone, in gratuitous humility and worship of angels, defraud you as an umpire, for such a one is taking his stand on the mere visions he has seen, and is groundlessly conceited over his sensuous mind.

If once through fellowship with Christ you died and were separated from the world's crude notions, why do you live as though you belonged to the world? Why submit to rules such as,

because of your hope of what is laid up for you in heaven. Long ago you heard of this hope through the message of the good news

if indeed you continue well grounded and firm in faith and never shift from the hope inspired by the good news you heard, which has been preached all over the world, and of which I, Paul, have been made a minister.

And over all these qualities put on love, which is the tie of perfection that binds us together.

You husbands must continue to love your wives and stop being harsh with them.

I want you to know what a battle I am fighting for you and for those in Laodicea, yes, for all who have never known me personally,

Fathers, stop exasperating your children, so as to keep them from losing heart.

the open secret, covered up from the people of former ages and generations, but now uncovered to God's people,

then you will be perfectly empowered by His glorious might for every sort of joyous endurance and forbearance,

Aristarchus, my fellow-prisoner, wishes to be remembered to you; and so does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas; if he comes to see you, give him a hearty welcome.

Our dearly loved Luke, the physician, and Demas, wish to be remembered to you.

by His death in His human body, so as to present you consecrated, faultless, and blameless in His presence,

Epaphras, one of your own number, a slave of Christ Jesus, wishes to be remembered to you. He is always earnestly pleading for you in his prayers that you may stand fast as men mature and of firm convictions in everything required by the will of God.

In it I have been made a minister in accordance with the trusteeship God entrusted to me for you, that I might prove among you the universal message of God,

At the same time keep on praying for me too, that God may open the door of opportunity for the message, so that I may tell the open secret about Christ, for the sake of which I am held a prisoner,

because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all God's people,

with your roots deeply planted in Him, being continuously built up in Him, and growing stronger in faith, just as you were taught to do, overflowing through it in your gratitude.