to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colossae: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father.

which is come to you, as it is in all the world, and is bearing fruit and growing, as it doth also in you, from the day ye heard it, and knew the grace of God in truth;

even as ye learned from Epaphras our beloved fellowservant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf;

On this account we also, from the day we heard of it, cease not to pray for you, and to ask that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

who rescued us from the empire of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son;

And he is the head of the body, the church; since he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he may be in all things preeminent;

if ye indeed continue in the faith grounded and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye heard, which hath been preached in the whole creation under heaven; of which I Paul became a minister.

having been buried with him in your baptism; in which also ye were raised to life with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead;

and not holding fast the Head, from which the whole body, supported and compacted by means of the joints and ligaments, groweth with an increase wrought by God.

Whatever ye do, do it from the heart, as to the Lord, and not to men,

knowing that from the Lord ye will receive the recompense of the inheritance; serve Christ as your Lord.

And when the letter hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that ye likewise read the letter from Laodicea.