1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2. to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse. Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
4. since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have to all the saints,
5. for the hope which is laid up for you in Heaven, of which you heard before in the Word of the truth of the gospel,
6. which has come to you as it has also in all the world, and it is bearing fruit, even also among you, since the day you heard and fully knew the grace of God in truth,
7. even as you learned from Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ for you,
8. he also having shown your love in the Spirit to us.
9. For this cause we also, since the day we heard, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
10. that you might walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing, being fruitful in every work and increasing in the knowledge of God,
11. being empowered with all power, according to the might of His glory, to all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness,
12. giving thanks to the Father, who has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
13. For He has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son;
14. in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins.
15. who is the image of the invisible God, the First-born of all creation.
16. For all things were created in Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him.
17. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
18. And He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that He may be pre-eminent in all things.
19. For it pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell.
20. And through Him having made peace through the blood of His cross, it pleased the Father to reconcile all things to Himself through Him, whether the things on earth or the things in Heaven.
21. And you, who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
22. in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish, and without charge in His sight,
23. if indeed you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard and which was proclaimed in all the creation under Heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister,
24. who now rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and I fill up the things lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, on behalf of His body, which is the church;
25. of which I became a minister, according to the administration of God given to me for you, to fulfill the Word of God;
26. the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.
27. For to them God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,
28. whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, so that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
29. For which I also labor, striving according to the working of Him who works in me in power.