Colossians 2

¹For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for 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 riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God and Father and of Christ,

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

⁴Now this I say, that no one may delude you with persuasive speech.

⁵For even if I am absent in the flesh, yet in spirit I am with you, rejoicing and seeing your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

⁶Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him,

⁷having been rooted and being built up in him, and being established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

⁸See to it that no one will be the one who takes you captive through his philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

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

¹⁰and you are in him, made complete, who is the head of all rule and authority,

¹¹in whom you also were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by the removal of the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,

¹²having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, the one who raised him from the dead.

¹³And you, being dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

¹⁴having blotted out the certificate of indebtedness against us, consisting in ordinances, which was hostile to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

¹⁵having stripped off the rulers and the authorities, he made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them in it.

¹⁶Let no one therefore judge you in regard to food and drink, or in regard to a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,

¹⁷which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body belongs to Christ.

¹⁸Let no one disqualify you, delighting in humility and worship of angels, taking his stand on what he has seen, vainly being puffed up by the mind of his flesh,

¹⁹and not holding fast to the head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth that is from God.

²⁰If you died with Christ from the elemental spirits of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you submit to decrees?

²¹Do not handle, nor taste, nor touch

²²which are all for destruction with their use, according to the commandments and teachings of men.

²³These things have a reputation for wisdom in self-imposed worship and humility and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.