¹For I want you to know how great a struggle I have concerning you and those in Laodicea and all others who have not seen my face in the flesh, ²and I want their hearts to be comforted, united in love, and to be leading to all the richness of the full assurance which comes with understanding, leading on to acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the father and of Christ, ³in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. ⁴But I say this so that no-one should mislead you with persuasive arguments, ⁵for although I am absent in the flesh, yet in the spirit I am with you, rejoicing and observing your orderliness and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. ⁶Therefore, just as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, ⁷being rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. ⁸Watch out that no-one carries you away through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the rudiments of the world and not according to Christ, ⁹for in him all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, ¹⁰and you are complete in him, who is the head of every realm and authority, ¹¹in whom you have also been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by the divesting of the sinful fleshly body by the circumcision of Christ, ¹²being buried with him in baptism, by whom you were also jointly raised through faith in the exertion of power from God, who raised him from the dead. ¹³And as for you, who were dead in the transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he jointly made you alive with him, having forgiven us all of our transgressions, ¹⁴having blotted out the writing attesting to ordinances, which was against us, which was in opposition to us and which he has removed from our midst, having nailed it to the cross. ¹⁵Having stripped the realms and the authorities, he made an example of them openly, and he triumphed over them by means of it. ¹⁶So let no-one judge you in food or in drink or in partaking of a festival or of a new moon celebration or of Sabbaths, ¹⁷which are a shadow of things to come, whereas the reality belongs to Christ. ¹⁸Let no-one defraud you of your prize, while he exercises his will in humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, ¹⁹and not holding onto the head, from where the whole body, supplied and united by joints and bands, grows with growth from God. ²⁰If you have died with Christ to the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you imposed upon with ordinances? ²¹– “Do not touch, and do not taste, and do not handle”, ²²which are all destined for decay with falling into disuse, these being after the commandments and teachings of men, ²³which indeed have a reputation for wisdom in self-willed worship and humility and austerity of the body, but not of any value for satisfying the flesh.