Colossians 1:9-23 - Prayer For Maturity Based On Christ's Preeminence

⁹ For this cause, ever since we heard of it, we incessantly pray for you, requesting that you may be endued with respect to the knowledge of his will, with all wisdom and spiritual discernment: ¹⁰ that your conduct may be worthy of the Lord, in every respect agreeable to him, being friutful in every kind of virtue, and increasing in divine knowledge: ¹¹ being fortified in so effectual a manner, as to sustain your trials with constancy and joy: ¹² giving thanks to the father, who has qualified you to share in that light he affords to his people: ¹³ who has deliver'd you from the state of darkness, and has translated you into the kingdom of his beloved son. ¹⁴ It is by him, that we have obtain'd the redemption, even the remission of our sins:

¹⁵ he is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of the whole creation. ¹⁶ for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are on earth, both visible and invisible, the thrones, and the sovereigntys, the principalitys, and the powers: all were created by him, and for him: he is before all things, ¹⁷ and by him all things consist. ¹⁸ he himself is the head of the church, which is his body. he is the prince, the first-born from the dead, that in all things he might be chief. ¹⁹ for it seemed good to the father to inhabit the whole body of the church by Christ: ²⁰ and having made peace by the blood of his cross, to reconcile all things to himself, both those in heaven, and those upon earth.

²¹ You then that formerly were alienated from God, and were enemies by your imaginations and wicked practices, even you has Jesus Christ now reconciled to the body of his church, ²² through his own death, to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in his own sight: ²³ provided you continue well-grounded and settled in the faith, and do not abandon that hope which has been offer'd to you by the gospel, and is proclaim'd to all mankind; of which I Paul am made a minister.