Colossians 1:3-9

Goodspeed(i) 3 We never pray for you without thanking God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 for what we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have for all God's people, 5 and for the hope of what is stored up for you in heaven. You first heard of it long ago when the true message of the gospel 6 came among you, to thrive and bear its fruit among you, as it does all over the world, from the time when you first heard about the mercy of God, 7 and really came to know it, in the form in which Epaphras, my dear fellow-slave, taught it to you. He is my faithful representative as a servant of Christ, 8 and it is he who has told me of the love the Spirit has awakened in you. 9 That is why, from the day I first heard of it, I have never given up praying for you and asking God to fill you, through full spiritual wisdom and insight, with a clear knowledge of what his will is,