1For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face,
2that their kardiai(hearts, soul-domains) may be encouraged, having been knit together in agape(love), and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in epignosis(spiritual, complete knowledge) of God's mystery, that is, Messiah(Christ) Himself,
3in whom are hidden all the treasures of sophia(wisdom) and gnosis(knowledge).
4I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.
5For even though I am absent in sarx(flesh), nevertheless I am with you in pneuma(spirit), rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Messiah(Christ).
6Therefore as you have received Messiah(Christ) Yeshua(Jesus) the Lord, so walk in Him,
7having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.
8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the stoicheia(elementary principles) of the world, rather than according to Messiah(Christ).
9For in Him all the pleroma(fullness) of Deity dwells in bodily form,
10and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and exousia(authority);
11and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the sarx(flesh) by the circumcision of Messiah(Christ);
12having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your sarx(flesh), He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
14having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the stauros(cross).
15When He had disarmed the rulers and exousiai(authorities), He made a parresia(public-display, boldness) of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
16Therefore no one is to krino(judge) you in regard to food or drink or in respect to heortes(festival) or new moon or sabbatons(referring to every Moed of Leviticus 23);
17things which are a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Messiah(Christ).
18Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly nous(intellect, spiritual domain),
19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
20If you have died with Messiah(Christ) to the stoicheia(elementary principles) of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees:
21"Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!"
22(which all refer to things destined to perish with use) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?
23These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of sophia(wisdom) in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.