| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Christian Standard Bible |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person. |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery--Christ. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ, |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12when you were 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. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him. |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16Therefore, don't let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ. |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19He doesn't hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21"Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch"? |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. |
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