that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

I became a servant of the church according to the stewardship from God – given to me for you – in order to complete the word of God,

Toward this goal I also labor, struggling according to his power that powerfully works in me.

Be careful not to allow anyone to captivate you through an empty, deceitful philosophy that is according to human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels pass judgment on you. That person goes on at great lengths about what he has supposedly seen, but he is puffed up with empty notions by his fleshly mind.

If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit to them as though you lived in the world?

Even though they have the appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship and false humility achieved by an unsparing treatment of the body – a wisdom with no true value – they in reality result in fleshly indulgence.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Whatever you are doing, work at it with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not for people,

And Jesus who is called Justus also sends greetings. In terms of Jewish converts, these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me.

For I can testify that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

Your faith and love have arisen from the hope laid up for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel

You learned the gospel from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave – a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf –

For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds,

if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has also been preached in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become its servant.

I say this so that no one will deceive you through arguments that sound reasonable.

Having been buried with him in baptism, you also have been raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead.