CHAPTER 2
I want
you
to know
how much
I am struggling
for
you
and
for those
at
Laodicea,
and
for all who
have not met
me
face to face,
that
they may be encouraged
in heart,
knit together
in
love,
and
filled with
the full riches
of complete
understanding,
so that
they may know
the
mystery
of God,
namely Christ,
For
although
I am absent from you
in
body,
I am present
with
you
in spirit,
and I delight
to see
your
orderly condition
and
firm
faith
in
Christ.
rooted
and
built up
in
Him,
established in
the
faith
as
you were taught,
and overflowing
with
thankfulness.
See to it
that no one
takes you captive
through
philosophy
and
empty
deception,
which are based on
human
tradition
and
the
spiritual forces
of the
world
rather than
on
Christ.
In
Him
you were also circumcised
in
the
putting off
of your
sinful nature,
with
the
circumcision
performed by Christ
and
not by human hands.
And
having been buried with
Him
in
baptism,
you were raised with Him
through
your
faith
in the
power
of God,
who
raised
Him
from
the dead.
When
you
were
dead
in
your
trespasses
and
in the
uncircumcision
of your
sinful nature,
God made you alive
with
Christ.
He forgave
us
all
our
trespasses,
having canceled
the
debt ascribed
to
us
in the
decrees
that
stood
against
us.
He took
it
away,
nailing
it
to the
cross!
And having disarmed
the
rulers
and
authorities,
He made a public spectacle of them,
triumphing
over them
by
the cross.
Therefore
let no
one
judge
you
by
what you eat
or
drink,
or
with
regard
to a festival,
a New Moon,
or
a Sabbath.
Do not let anyone
who delights
in
false humility
and
the worship
of angels
disqualify
you
with speculation about
what
he has seen.
Such a man is puffed up
without basis
by
his
unspiritual
mind,
and
he loses connection
to the
head,
from
whom
the
whole
body,
supported
and
knit together
by
its
joints
and
ligaments,
grows
as
God
causes it to grow.
If
you have died
with
Christ
to
the
spiritual forces
of the
world,
why,
as though
you still belonged
to
the world,
do you submit to its regulations:
Such restrictions
indeed
have
an appearance
of wisdom,
with their
self-prescribed worship,
their false humility,
and
their harsh treatment
of the body;
but they are
of
no
value
against
the indulgence
of the
flesh.