In it, by divine appointment, I became a worker, that I might preach among you the message of God in its fulness??26 that secret, hidden from the ages and generations, but now disclosed to those who are consecrated to him,

Through your relation to him you have received not a physical circumcision, but a circumcision effected by Christ, in stripping you of your material nature,

canceled the bond which stood against us, with its requirements, and put it out of our way when he nailed it to the cross.

No one can put you in the wrong by persisting in studied humility and the worship of angels, being absorbed in the visions he has seen, and groundlessly conceited over his mere human mind.

Such practices pass for wisdom, with their self-imposed devotions, their self-humiliation, and their ascetic discipline, but they carry with them no real distinction, they are really only a catering to the flesh.

But now you too must put them all aside??nger, rage, spite, rough, abusive talk??hese must be banished from your lips.

and have put on that new self newly made in the likeness of its Creator, to know him fully.

Here, what matters is not "Greek" and "Jew," the circumcised and the uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, freeborn, but Christ is everything and in us all.

And over all these put on love, which completes them and fastens them all together.

You who are slaves must always obey your earthly masters, not with mere external service, as though you had only men to please, but with sincerity of heart, because you fear the Lord.

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

For the man who wrongs anyone will be paid back for the wrong he has done; there will be no exceptions.

Always put your message attractively, and yet pointedly, and be prepared to give every inquirer a fitting answer.