1 PAUL, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

2 to the holy and faithful brethren in Christ in Colossae: Grace be to you and peace from God our Father!

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in praying for you,

4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have to all the holy

5 because of the hope laid up for us in heaven. Of this you have already heard in the true message of the good news

6 which has come to you. Just as in all the world it is bearing fruit and growing, so also it is among you since the day that you heard and learned of the grace of God in truth.

7 So you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ in your behalf,

8 and who has told us of your love in the Spirit.

9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard it, never cease praying for you and asking that you may have full knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual insight,

10 and that you may live lives worthy of the Lord and please him in every way. May you bear fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of God.

11 May you be strengthened with all strength according to his glorious power, so as to have all patience and endurance.

12 May you joyfully give thanks to the Father who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy in light.

13 He has saved us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,

14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation;

16 for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, both visible and invisible, whether thrones or lordships or archangels or powers \'97 all things have been created through him and for him,

17 and he is before all things and in him all things unite.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he may be first in all things,

19 because it pleased God to have all his fullness dwell in him

20 and to reconcile all things to himself through him, making peace through the blood of his cross \'97 all things, I say, whether on earth or in heaven.

21 And you who were once alienated and enemies in your minds, living in wicked works, he has reconciled

22 by his body of flesh through death, to present you holy and spotless and blameless before him,

23 if you remain in the faith, firm and steadfast, never moving from the hope of the good news which you have heard and which has been proclaimed in all the creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a servant.

24 Now I rejoice in what I suffer for your sake, and in my turn am filling up in my flesh what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

25 I became a servant of the church according to the commission from God given to me for you, to deliver fully God's message,

26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made plain to his holy ones,

27 to whom God willed to make known what is the glorious wealth of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory.

28 And we are announcing him, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom in order that we may present every man complete in Christ.

29 For this also I labor, wrestling with the energy of him who works powerfully within me.