Colossians 2 HCSB NLT Parallel

◄ Colossians 2 ►

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Holman Christian Standard Bible

New Living Translation

1For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.

1I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other believers who have never met me personally.

2I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God's mystery--Christ.

2I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself.

3All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him.

3In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

4I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments.

4I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments.

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.

5For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you. And I rejoice that you are living as you should and that your faith in Christ is strong. Freedom from Rules and New Life in Christ

6Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,

6And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.

7rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude.

7Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

8Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ.

8Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.

9For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ,

9For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.

10and you have been filled by Him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

10So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

11You were also circumcised in Him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of the Messiah.

11When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.

12Having been buried with Him in baptism, you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

12For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

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.

13You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.

14He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.

14He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

15He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; He triumphed over them by Him.

15In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

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.

16So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths.

17These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah.

17For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.

18Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind.

18Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud,

19He doesn't hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God.

19and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.

20If you died with the Messiah to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: "

20You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as,

21Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch"?

21“Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”?

22All these regulations refer to what is destroyed by being used up; they are commands and doctrines of men.

22Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them.

23Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

23These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.

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