2 For I desire that you knew what great struggle I have for you, and for those of Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;
2 that their hearts might be encouraged, having been joined together in love and in all the riches of the full assurance of understanding to know the mystery of God and the Father and of Christ,
3 in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 And this I say so that no one should deceive you with persuasive words.
5 For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order and your steadfast faith in Christ.
6 Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him;
7 being rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
8 Beware, lest anyone spoil you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of man, according to the principles 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 Him also are you circumcised, with circumcision made without hands, by putting off the sinful body of the flesh through the circumcision of Christ,
12 buried with Him in baptism (in which you are also risen with Him through the faith of the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead).
13 And you, who were dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, forgiving all trespasses
14 and blotting out the handwriting of the ordinances against us which opposed us. He has taken it out of the way and fastened it upon the cross.
15 And having disarmed the rulers and authorities, and having made a show of them openly, He has triumphed over them in it.
16 Therefore, let no one judge you as regards food and drink, or regarding a holy day or the new moon or the Sabbath,
17 which are a shadow of things to come. But the body is of Christ.
18 Let no one, at his pleasure, bear rule over you by his humbleness of mind and his worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has never seen, being rashly puffed up with his fleshly mind
19 and not taking hold of the Head (from Whom all the body, supplied and knit together by joints and bonds, grows with a growth that is from God).
20 Therefore, if you have died with Christ from the principles of the world, why then (as though you lived in the world) do you submit to ordinances such as:
21 “Touch not! Taste not! Handle not!”,
22 which all perish with use and are according to the commandments and doctrines of man?
23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom and of voluntary religion and humbleness of mind and of not sparing the body but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.