Colossians 2

¹For I want you to know how great a wrestling match I am enduring for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for all those who have never seen my face in the flesh. ²My goal is that their hearts may be encouraged, interwoven in love and led into all the riches of the full assurance of insight, resulting in a deep recognition of the mystery of God—namely, Christ. ³In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. ⁴I say this so that no one may delude you with persuasive but hollow rhetoric. ⁵For even though I am physically absent, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing as I observe your orderly formation and the solid bulwark of your faith in Christ.

⁶Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, ⁷having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him, established in the faith just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. ⁸Watch out so that no one carries you off as plunder through "philosophy" and empty deceit, according to human tradition and the elemental powers of the world, rather than according to Christ. ⁹For in him, the entire fullness of the Divine Nature resides in a physical body, ¹⁰and you have been brought to fullness in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

¹¹In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision performed without hands, by the stripping off of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ. ¹²You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the operative power of God, who raised him from the dead. ¹³And you, though you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made alive together with him—graciously forgiving us all our trespasses. ¹⁴He erased the signed record of debt that stood against us with its regulations—the one that was hostile to us—and has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵Having stripped the rulers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, leading them in a victory parade in him.

¹⁶Therefore, do not let anyone act as your judge regarding eating or drinking, or in respect to a festival, a New Moon, or Sabbaths. ¹⁷These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. ¹⁸Let no one cheat you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, dwelling on visions they have seen, puffed up without cause by their own fleshly mind. ¹⁹Such a person does not hold fast to the Head, from whom the whole body—nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments—grows with a growth that is from God.

²⁰If you died with Christ to the elemental powers of the world, why, as if you were still living in the world, do you submit to regulations— ²¹"Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch"— ²²all of which refer to things destined to perish with use? These are based on human commands and teachings. ²³These things have a reputation for wisdom, with their self-made religion, self-abasement, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in restraining the indulgence of the flesh.