Colossians 2

¹ For I want you to perceive what the struggle amounts to which I am having for your sakes and for those in Laodicea, and whoever have not seen my face in flesh, ² that their hearts may be consoled, being united in love, and to all the riches of the assurance of understanding, unto a realization of the secret of the God and Father, of Christ, ³ in Whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are concealed. ⁴ Now I am saying this, that no one may be beguiling you with persuasive words. ⁵ For even if, in flesh, I am absent, nevertheless, in spirit, I am with you, rejoicing and observing your order and the stability of your faith in Christ. ⁶ As, then, you accepted Christ Jesus, the Lord, be walking in Him, ⁷ having been rooted and being built up in Him, and being confirmed in the faith according as you were taught, superabounding in it with thanksgiving. ⁸ Beware that no one shall be despoiling you through philosophy and empty seduction, in accord with human tradition, in accord with the elements of the world, and not in accord with Christ, ⁹ for in Him the entire complement of the Deity is dwelling bodily. ¹⁰ And you are complete in Him, Who is the Head of every sovereignty and authority, ¹¹ in Whom you were circumcised also with a circumcision not made by hands, in the stripping off of the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ. ¹² Being entombed together with Him in baptism, in Whom you were roused together also through faith in the operation of God, ¹³ Who rouses Him from among the dead, you also being dead to the offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He vivifies us together jointly with Him, dealing graciously with all our offenses, ¹⁴ erasing the handwriting of the decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and has taken it away out of the midst, nailing it to the cross, ¹⁵ stripping off the sovereignties and authorities, with boldness He makes a show of them, triumphing over them in it. ¹⁶ Let no one, then, be judging you in food or in drink or in the particulars of a festival, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths, ¹⁷ which are a shadow of those things which are impending - yet the body is the Christ's. ¹⁸ Let no one be arbitrating against you, who wants, in humility and the ritual of the messengers, to parade what he has seen, feignedly, puffed up by his fleshly mind, ¹⁹ and not holding the Head, out of Whom the entire body, being supplied and united through the assimilation and ligaments, is growing in the growth of God. ²⁰ If, then, you died together with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as living in the world, are you subject to decrees: ²¹ You should not be touching, nor yet tasting, nor yet coming into contact, ²² (which things are all for corruption from use), in accord with the directions and teachings of men? ²³ which are (having, indeed, an expression of wisdom in a willful ritual and humility and asceticism) not of any value toward the surfeiting of the flesh.