We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, constantly praying for you as we do,

For it has reached you, and remains with you, just as it has also spread through the whole world, yielding fruit there and increasing, as it has done among you from the day when first you heard it and came really to know the grace of God,

as you learned it from Epaphras our dearly-loved fellow servant. He is to you a faithful minister of Christ in our stead,

And you, estranged as you once were and even hostile in your minds, amidst your evil deeds,

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.

For although, as you say, I am absent from you in body, yet in spirit I am present with you and am delighted to witness your good discipline and the solid front presented by your faith in Christ.

As therefore you have received the Christ, even Jesus our Lord, live and act in vital union with Him;

having the roots of your being firmly planted in Him, and continually building yourselves up in Him, and always being increasingly confirmed in the faith as you were taught it, and abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Take care lest there be some one who leads you away as prisoners by means of his philosophy and idle fancies, following human traditions and the world's crude notions instead of following Christ.

And to you--dead as you once were in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your natural state--He has nevertheless given Life with Himself, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

And the hostile princes and rulers He shook off from Himself, and boldly displayed them as His conquests, when by the Cross He triumphed over them.

Therefore suffer no one to sit in judgement on you as to eating or drinking or with regard to a festival, a new moon or a sabbath.

If you have died with Christ and have escaped from the world's rudimentary notions, why, as though your life still belonged to the world, do you submit to such precepts as

and have clothed yourselves with the new self which is being remoulded into full knowledge so as to become like Him who created it.

Clothe yourselves therefore, as God's own people holy and dearly loved, with tender-heartedness, kindness, lowliness of mind, meekness, long-suffering;

bearing with one another and readily forgiving each other, if any one has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, you also must forgive.

and let the peace which Christ gives settle all questionings in your hearts, to which peace indeed you were called as belonging to His one Body; and be thankful.

Let the teaching concerning Christ remain as a rich treasure in your hearts. In all wisdom teach and admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and sing with grace in your hearts to God.

Married women, be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Slaves, be obedient in everything to your earthly masters; not in acts of eye service, as aiming only to please men, but with simplicity of purpose, because you fear the Lord.

Whatever you are doing, let your hearts be in your work, as a thing done for the Lord and not for men.

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.

Then I shall proclaim it fully, as it is my duty to do.

Aristarchus my fellow prisoner sends greeting to you, and so does Barnabas's cousin Mark. You have received instructions as to him; if he comes to you, give him a welcome.

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.

And tell Archippus to discharge carefully the duties devolving upon him as a servant of the Lord.