Colossians 2

Paul’s Struggle for the Churches

1For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and into all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, which is Christ,

3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4I say this so that no one may deceive you with persuasive speech. 5For even though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Fullness in Christ

6Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9For in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have been filled in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

11In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the removal of the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, 12having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

13And you, who were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14having erased the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

15He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public display of them, triumphing over them in it.

Freedom from Human Regulations

16Therefore let no one judge you in matters of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths— 17which are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

18Let no one disqualify you, insisting on humility and worship of angels, going on about visions, puffed up without reason by a fleshly mind, 19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20If with Christ you died to the elemental principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21“Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”? 22These refer to things that perish with use, according to human commands and teachings.

23These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.