Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Colossians 1
Greeting and Thanksgiving
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will, and Timothy our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your trust in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all the holy ones, because of the hope stored up for you in heaven. You heard about this hope before in the word of truth, the good news, which has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been among you since the day you heard and truly knew God’s grace. You learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and who also made known to us your love in the Spirit.
A Prayer for Knowledge and Fruitful Living
For this reason, from the day we heard, we have not stopped praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, pleasing him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience, with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in the light. He rescued us from the authority of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The Son before All Things
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible—whether thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might become first in everything, because all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Reconciled through Christ’s Death
You once were alienated and hostile in your minds, shown by evil works. But now he has reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, to present you holy, blameless, and above accusation before him, if indeed you continue in the trust, founded and firm, not moving away from the hope of the good news you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. I, Paul, became its servant.
Christ in You, the Hope of Glory
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and in my flesh I fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church. I became its servant according to the stewardship God gave me for you, to make God’s word fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his holy ones. God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery: Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, warning every person and teaching every person with all wisdom so that we may present every person mature in Christ. For this I labor, struggling according to his power that works powerfully in me.