1. For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,
2. that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of the understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
3. in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4. And I say this that not anyone should beguile you with enticing words.
5. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, rejoicing and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
6. Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
7. rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
8. Beware lest anyone rob you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.
9. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
10. And you are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power,
11. in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ,
12. buried with Him in baptism, in whom also you were raised through the faith of the working of God, raising Him from the dead.
13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14. blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.
15. Having stripped rulers and authorities, He made a show of them publicly, triumphing over them in it.
16. Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a feast, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths.
17. For these are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.
18. Let no one defraud you, delighting in humility and worship of the angels, intruding into things which he has not seen, without a cause being vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19. and not holding the Head, from whom all the body, having been supplied through the joints and bands, and having been joined together, will grow with the growth of God.
20. If then you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to its ordinances:
21. touch not, taste not, handle not;
22. which things are all for corruption in the using, according to the commands and doctrines of men?
23. These things indeed have a reputation of wisdom in self-imposed worship and humility, and unsparing severity of the body, but are not of any value for the satisfying of the flesh.