| 1 | Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, |
| 2 | To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ [that are] at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. |
| 3 | We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, |
| 4 | having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, |
| 5 | because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, |
| 6 | which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as [it doth] in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God in truth; |
| 7 | even as ye learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow-servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, |
| 8 | who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit. |
| 9 | For this cause we also, since the day we heard [it], do not cease to pray and make request for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, |
| 10 | to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; |
| 11 | strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy; |
| 12 | giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; |
| 13 | who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; |
| 14 | in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins: |
| 15 | who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; |
| 16 | for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; |
| 17 | and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. |
| 18 | And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. |
| 19 | For it was the good pleasure [of the Father] that in him should all the fulness dwell; |
| 20 | and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, [I say], whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. |
| 21 | And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, |
| 22 | yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before him: |
| 23 | if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a minister. |
| 24 | Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body`s sake, which is the church; |
| 25 | whereof I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God, |
| 26 | [even] the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to his saints, |
| 27 | to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: |
| 28 | whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; |
| 29 | whereunto I labor also, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. |
