Colossians 2

1For I want you to know how hard I am struggling for you and for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face.

2I want their hearts to be encouraged as they are knit together in love, so that they may have all the riches of full assurance of understanding and come to know the mystery of God, namely Christ,

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

4I say this so that no one may deceive you with persuasive arguments.

5For even though I am absent in body, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,

7rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with thanksgiving.

8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ.

9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,

10and you have been filled in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

11In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not done by human hands, by putting off the body of the 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, who raised him from the dead.

13And when you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

14He canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. He set it aside, nailing it to the cross.

15He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in him.

16So do not let anyone judge you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath.

17These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

18Do not let anyone disqualify you who insists on self-abasement and the worship of angels, dwelling on what he has seen, puffed up without reason by his fleshly mind,

19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

20If with Christ you died to the elemental forces of the world, why, as if you still belonged to the world, do you submit to rules such as

21“Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch”?

22These all refer to things that perish as they are used, and they are based on human commands and teachings.

23Such rules indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-made religion, self-abasement, and harsh treatment of the body, but they have no value in restraining the indulgence of the flesh.