| Berean Study Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me face to face, | 1I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other believers who have never met me personally. |
| 2that they may be encouraged in heart, knit together in love, and filled with the full riches of complete understanding, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, | 2I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. |
| 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. | 3In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. |
| 4I say this so that no one will deceive you by smooth rhetoric. | 4I am telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments. |
| 5For although I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and I delight to see your orderly condition and firm faith in Christ. | 5For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you. And I rejoice that you are living as you should and that your faith in Christ is strong. Freedom from Rules and New Life in Christ |
| 6Therefore, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him, | 6And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. |
| 7rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. | 7Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. |
| 8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. | 8Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. |
| 9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form. | 9For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. |
| 10And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. | 10So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. |
| 11In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. | 11When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. |
| 12And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead. | 12For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. |
| 13When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, | 13You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. |
| 14having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross! | 14He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. |
| 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. | 15In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. |
| 16Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. | 16So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. |
| 17These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ. | 17For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. |
| 18Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you with speculation about what he has seen. Such a person is puffed up without basis by his unspiritual mind. | 18Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, |
| 19He has lost connection to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God causes it to grow. | 19and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it. |
| 20If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations: | 20You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, |
| 21“Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”? | 21“Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? |
| 22These will all perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. | 22Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. |
| 23Such restrictions indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-prescribed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body; but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. | 23These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires. |
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