¹For I want you to know how great a struggle I am having for you and those in Laodicea and as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,

²that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love and to all the richness of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God and Father and of the Anointed One,

³in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge hidden.

⁴Now this I say so that no one may delude you by persuasive speech;

⁵for if truly even in the flesh I am absent, yet in the spirit I am with you, rejoicing and seeing your good order and the firmness of your trust in the Anointed One.

⁶Therefore, just as you have received the Anointed One Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,

⁷rooted and being built up in Him and being strengthened in the trust, even as you were taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

⁸Take heed lest anyone there will be who is taking you captive through the philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the principles of the world and not according to the Anointed One;

⁹for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Deity bodily,

¹⁰and you are completed in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority;

¹¹in whom also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Anointed One,

¹²when you had been buried with Him in the immersion, in which also you were raised with Him through the trust of the working of God, the One who having raised Him out from the dead.

¹³And you being dead in the trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all the transgressions;

¹⁴when he had blotted out the handwriting against us in the decrees, which was adverse to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross;

¹⁵having disarmed the rulers and the authorities, He disgraced them in public, having triumphed over them in it.

¹⁶Therefore not anyone should judge you in regard to food or in regard to drink or in regard to a festival or a New Moon or Sabbaths,

¹⁷which are a shadow of the things coming, however the body is of the Anointed One.

¹⁸No one should disqualify you, delighting in humility and the worship of the messengers, detailing which he has not seen, vainly being puffed up by the mind of his flesh,

¹⁹and not holding fast to the head, from whom all the body, through the joints and ligaments being supplied and being knit together, increases with the increase of God.

²⁰Therefore if you have died with the Anointed One away from the principles of the world, why, as if living in the world, do you submit to decrees?

²¹Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!

²²which are all unto decay with the use, according to the commandments and the teachings of men;

²³which are having indeed an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed worship and humility and harsh treatment of the body, not of a certain honor against the indulgence of the flesh.