which is not only come to you, but to all the world; where it produces its effects, and increases, as it does also among you, ever since you sincerely embrac'd the divine favour,

Once you were estranged yourselves, your hearts hostile to him in evildoing; but now he has reconciled you by dying in his mortal body,

but now you have been reconciled by {his physical body} through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

I am suffering now on your behalf, but I rejoice in that; I would make up the full sum of all that Christ has to suffer in my person on behalf of the church, his Body;

of which I am a minister, according to the dispensation of God, which was given me for you to fulfil the ministry of the word of God??26 the mystery which was hid from ages and from generations, but is now unveiled to his saints;

that mystery, hid since the world began, and since the beginning of generations: But now is opened to his saints,

But I say this that no one may mislead you with persuasive words.

For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.

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,

which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's.

Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels pass judgment on you. That person goes on at great lengths about what he has supposedly seen, but he is puffed up with empty notions by his fleshly mind.

Which things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.

Lie not one to another, but strip off the old self with its doings,

where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.

But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

may the peace of Christ, to which you are called to be but one body, influence your hearts, to be benevolent.

Servants, obey in all things those who are your masters according to the flesh, not just when they are looking, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord.

Work at everything you do with all your hearts, as work done not for men only but for the Lord,

But he who does wrong will receive again for the wrong that he has done, and there is no partiality.