that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and spreading all over the world, so it has been doing among you from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth.

and it is he who has told me of your love for me in the spirit.

I ask that you may give thanks to the Father who has made us fit to receive our share of the heritage of the saints in the light.

For he has delivered us out of the dominion of the darkness, and transplanted us into the kingdom of his dear Son,

All has been created through him and for him. He was before all things, and all things unite in him;

For it pleased the Father for all the fullness [of deity—the sum total of His essence, all His perfection, powers, and attributes] to dwell [permanently] in Him (the Son),

So you, who were once estranged from Him, and hostile in disposition as shown by your wrongdoings, He has now reconciled

he has now in his human body reconciled to God by his death, in order that he may bring you into his presence, holy and unblemished and irreproachable.

And this he will do if, indeed, you continue in the faith, firmly founded and stedfast, and never moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, and which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, that gospel of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

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 have been established a minister, according to the charge which God has given me to preach his gospel faithfully among you. ---

that secret truth, which, although hidden from ages and generations of old, has now been made manifest to his saints.

to whom God has chosen to make known how glorious are the riches of this open secret among the heathen, namely, Christ in you the hope of your glorification.

For in him all the wealth of God's being has a living form,

Buried with him in baptism, in which also you are risen with him through the faith of the working of God, who has raised him from the dead.

And you also, at one time dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sensual nature, he has made alive together with himself. For he forgave us all our transgressions,

wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us; and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;

Disarming the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Let no one rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

And not joined to the Head, from whom all the body, being given strength and kept together through its joins and bands, has its growth with the increase of God.

For you have died, and your life has been safely guarded by the Messiah in God.

and having put on the new, renewed into full knowledge according to the image of him that has created him;

So, as God’s own chosen people, who are holy [set apart, sanctified for His purpose] and well-beloved [by God Himself], put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience [which has the power to endure whatever injustice or unpleasantness comes, with good temper];

bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as the Lord forgave you, so you also do.

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

Tychicus will tell you everything that has happened to me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord.

and with him Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of yourselves. They will tell you everything that has taken place here.

For I testify about him, that he has worked hard for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for those in Hierapolis.

When this letter has been read among you, cause it to be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that you also read the letter from Laodicea.

And say to Archippus, "Take heed to the office that thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it."