Thomson(i)
1 For I wish you to know what a great struggle I have for you, and for them in Laodicea, and as many as have not seen me in person,
2 that, they being knit together in love, their hearts may be comforted, even to all the riches of the full assurance of this knowledge"to the acknowledgement of the mystery of the God and Father and the Christ,
3 in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 Now I say this in order that none may deceive you with enticing discourse;
5 for though I am absent in person, yet in spirit I am present with you, rejoicing and beholding the regularity of your conduct and the stedfastness of your belief in Christ.
6 As you therefore have received the Christ Jesus for your Lord, walk in him
7 rooted and built up in him, and firmly established in this belief, as you have been taught; abounding in it with thankfulness.
8 Be on your guard, that none may make a prey of you by their philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.
9 Because all the plenitude of the deity resideth substantially in him, 10 therefore you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power;
11 in whom also you have been circumcised with a circumcision made without hands; with the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh; with the circumcision of the Christ;
12 having been buried with him in that baptism in which also you were raised with him by your belief in the mighty power of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 When you were dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh he raised you to life with him. Having freely forgiven you all those trespasses
14 having blotted out the hand-writing which was against us by the ordinances; that which was adverse to us he removed out of the way; having nailed this to the cross.
15 having divested himself of the principalities and the powers, he exposed them to public view- when he triumphed over them on it.
16 Let none therefore judge you in respect to eating or drinking, or in respect to a festival, or a new moon, or sabbaths,
17 which are a shadow of the things to come. And with respect to the body of the Christ,
18 let no one deprive you of the prize; however delighted he may be with an affected humility and the religion of angels, prying into matters which he hath not seen, being vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19 and not adhering to the head, from which the whole body, being by means of joints and ligaments supplied and knit together, is to receive the divine increase.
20 If you, then, have died with the Christ from the elements of the world, why are you, as if you were living in the world, troubled with these dogmas,
21 "Touch not; taste not; handle not;"
22 which all tend to corruption by this improper use according to the injunctions and doctrines of those men.
23 These indeed have a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility and self denial. Are they not in some estimation for the gratification of the flesh?