To the people of God and the believing brethren at Colossae who are in Christ. May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father.

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.

In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored up, hidden from view.

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

referring to things which are all intended to be used up and perish--in obedience to mere human injunctions and teachings?

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.

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.

The man who perpetrates a wrong will find the wrong repaid to him; and with God there are no merely earthly distinctions.

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.

Jesus, called Justus, also sends greeting. These three are Hebrew converts. They alone among such have worked loyally with me for the Kingdom of God--they are men who have been a comfort to me.