1. For I want you to know what great anxiety I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;
2. That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and into all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
3. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4. And this I say, so that no one will beguile you with enticing words.
5. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, rejoicing and beholding your orderliness, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
6. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him:
7. Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
8. Beware so that no one will spoil you through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
9. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
10. And you are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power:
11. In whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
12. 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.
13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has he made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
14. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
15. And having plundered principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
16. Let no one therefore judge you in food, or in drink, or with respect to a holy day, or the new moon, or the sabbath days:
17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
18. Let no one beguile you of your reward in a pretended humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19. And not holding to the Head, from which all the body by joints and ligaments having nourishment supplied, and knit together, increases with the increase of God.
20. Therefore if you are dead with Christ from the principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances,
21. (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
22. Which are all to perish with the consumption;) according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
23. Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in excessive piety, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not of any value but serve to the satisfying of the flesh.
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