due to the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. You heard of this hope originally in the message of the Truth, in that gospel

which has reached you as it spreads over all the world with fruit and increase. Such has been your life from the day you learned to know what God's grace really is.

so as to set you consecrated and unblemished and irreproachable in his presence ??23 that is, if you adhere to the foundations and stability of the faith, instead of moving away from the hope you have learned in the gospel, that gospel which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I Paul was made a minister.

for I am a minister of the church by the divine commission which has been granted me in your interests, to make a full presentation of God's message ??26 of that open secret which, though concealed from ages and generations of old, has now been disclosed to the saints of God.

It is His will that they should understand the glorious wealth which this secret holds for the Gentiles, in the fact of Christ's presence among you as your hope of glory.

I labour for that end, striving for it with the divine energy which is a power within me.

Beware of anyone getting hold of you by means of a theosophy which is specious make-believe, on the lines of human tradition, corresponding to the Elemental spirits of the world and not to Christ.

So put to death those members that are on earth: sexual vice, impurity, appetite, evil desire, and lust (which is idolatry),

and put on the new nature which is renewed in the likeness of its Creator for the knowledge of him.

remember, you will receive from the Lord the inheritance which is your due; serve Christ your Lord and Master,

and pray for me as well, that God may give me an opening for the word, to speak of the open secret of Christ for which I am in custody.

Salute the brothers at Laodicea, also Nympha and the church which meets at her house.