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2:1  For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen · my face in the flesh.
2:2  My goal is that their hearts may be encouraged · and knit together in love, · so that they may have all the wealth of full assurance of understanding, for knowledge of God’s mystery, · which is Christ,
2:3  in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
2:4  I am telling you this so that no one may deceive you with specious arguments.
2:5  Even though · I am absent in body, I am with you in spirit, and I rejoice · to see your · orderly conduct and the stability of your faith in Christ.
2:6  So then, just as you received · Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,
2:7  rooted and built up in him, · established in the faith just as you were taught, and abounding in thanksgiving.
2:8  See to it that no one takes you · captive by means of · philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
2:9  For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells in bodily form,
2:10  and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every principality and power.
2:11  In him you also were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, by the putting off of the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.
2:12  Having been buried with him in · baptism, you have also been raised with him through · faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
2:13  And although you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our transgressions,
2:14  having canceled the certificate of debt with its legal demands against us, which was hostile to us. · He has taken it away · by nailing it to the cross.
2:15  He stripped the principalities and · powers of their authority and disgraced them in public by triumphing over them in Christ.
2:16  Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food and drink, or in regard to a religious festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath day.
2:17  These are but a shadow of what was to come, but the reality is found in Christ.
2:18  Let no one rob you of your prize, insisting on self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions, puffed up with empty notions by · his earthly way of thinking. ·
2:19  · That person is not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
2:20  Since you died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as though you were still living in the world, do you submit to regulations such as,
2:21  “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?
2:22  These are all destined to perish with use, based as they are on · human commands and teachings. ·
2:23  Such regulations indeed have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed religious piety, · false humility, and harsh control over the body, but they are of no value against the gratification of the flesh.