To the people of God and the believing brethren at Colossae who are in Christ. May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father.

and give thanks to the Father who has made us fit to receive our share of the inheritance of God's people in Light.

It is God who has delivered us out of the dominion of darkness, and has transferred us into the Kingdom of His dearly-loved Son,

in whom we have our redemption--the forgiveness of our sins.

to whom it was His will to make known how vast a wealth of glory for the Gentile world is implied in this truth--the truth that 'Christ is in you, the hope of glory.'

To this end, like an earnest wrestler, I exert all my strength in reliance upon the power of Him who is mightily at work within me.

For I would have you know in how severe a struggle I am engaged on behalf of you and the brethren in Laodicea and of all who have not known me personally,

Take care lest there be some one who leads you away as prisoners by means of his philosophy and idle fancies, following human traditions and the world's crude notions instead of following Christ.

having been buried with Him in your baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith produced within you by God who raised Him from among the dead.

Such a one does not keep his hold upon Christ, the Head, from whom the Body, in all its parts nourished and strengthened by its points of contact and its connections, grows with a divine growth.

and have clothed yourselves with the new self which is being remoulded into full knowledge so as to become like Him who created it.

The man who perpetrates a wrong will find the wrong repaid to him; and with God there are no merely earthly distinctions.

And with him I send our dear and trusty brother Onesimus, who is one of yourselves. They will inform you of everything here.

Jesus, called Justus, also sends greeting. These three are Hebrew converts. They alone among such have worked loyally with me for the Kingdom of God--they are men who have been a comfort to me.

Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, sends greetings to you, always wrestling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand firm--Christians of ripe character and of clear conviction as to everything which is God's will.