Colossians 1

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

²To the holy ones in Colossae, faithful brothers in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³We give thanks to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for you,

⁴having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the holy ones,

⁵because of the hope laid up for you in the heavens, which you heard of before in the word of the truth of the gospel,

⁶which has come to you, just as also in all the world it is bearing fruit and increasing, just as also among you, from the day you heard and came to know fully the grace of God in truth,

⁷just as also you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-slave, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf,

⁸who also made known to us your love in the Spirit.

⁹For this reason we also, from the day we heard, do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,

¹⁰to walk worthily of the Lord in all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the full knowledge of God,

¹¹being strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and long-suffering,

¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for the share of the lot of the holy ones in the light,

¹³who has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love,

¹⁴in whom we have redemption, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins;

¹⁵who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation;

¹⁶for in him all things were created, those in the heavens and those on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him.

¹⁷And he himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

¹⁸And he himself is the head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might become in all things himself preeminent.

¹⁹for in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,

²⁰and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross — through him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens.

²¹And you, who were once alienated and hostile in your mind, in your evil deeds,

²²in the body of his flesh through his death, to present you holy and unblemished and blameless before him.

²³if indeed you continue in the faith, having been founded and firm, and not being shifted from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, have become a minister.

²⁴Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am filling up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

²⁵of which I became a minister, according to the stewardship of God given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,

²⁶the mystery that has been hidden from the ages and from the generations, but now has been manifested to his saints,

²⁷to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

²⁸whom we ourselves proclaim, admonishing every person and teaching every person in all wisdom, that we may present every person mature in Christ Jesus,

²⁹For this I also toil, striving according to his working that is working in me in power.