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.

For this reason, since the day we heard about this, we have not stopped praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of God's will with respect to all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

so that you might live in a manner worthy of the Lord and be fully pleasing to him as you bear fruit while doing all kinds of good things and growing in the full knowledge of God.

You are being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you might patiently endure everything with joy

He is also the head of the body, which is the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might have first place in everything.

he has now reconciled by the death of his physical body, so that he may present you holy, blameless, and without fault before him.

Now I am rejoicing while suffering for you as I complete in my flesh whatever remains of the Messiah's sufferings on behalf of his body, which is the church.

I became its servant as God commissioned me to work for you, so that I may complete my ministry of the word of God.

It is he whom we proclaim as we admonish and wisely teach everyone, so that we may present everyone mature in the Messiah.

I say this so that no one will mislead you with nice-sounding rhetoric.

For although I am physically absent, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how stable you are and how firm your faith in the Messiah is.

So then, just as you have received the Messiah Jesus the Lord, continue to live dependent on him.

See to it that no one enslaves you through philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to the Messiah,

So put to death your worldly impulses: sexual sin, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).

Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

At the same time also pray for us that God would open before us a door for the word so that we may tell the secret about the Messiah, for which I have been imprisoned.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.

I am sending him to you for this very reason, so that you may know how we are doing and that he may encourage your hearts.

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of the Messiah Jesus, sends you his greetings. He is always wrestling in his prayers for you, so that you may stand mature, completely convinced of the entire will of God.

Tell Archippus, "See that you complete the ministry you have received from the Lord."