(1) [This letter is from] Paul--an apostle of Messiah, Jesus, through the will of God--and Timothy, the brother (2) to the saints in Colossae, faithful brothers in Messiah — grace to you and peace from God our Father.
​(3) We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, concerning praying for you, (4) having heard of your faith in the Messiah, Jesus, and the love which you have for all the saints (5) on account of the hope stored up for you in the heavens, which you heard before hand in the words of the truth of the Good News (6) which has come to you. Indeed, it is bearing fruit and growing in all the world, even among you as well, since the day that you heard and knew the grace of God in truth. (7) You learned it from the beloved Epaphras, a faithful, fellow servant among us, a servant of Messiah, (8) the one who made known to us your love in the Spirit. (9) On account of this we also, from the first day we heard, did not cease praying and asking for you, in order that you should be filled with the knowledge of His Will in all wisdom and spiritual insight. (10) you should walk worthily of the Lord, desiring to please him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, (11) being strengthened in all power according to the might of his glory in all endurance and steadfastness, with joy, (12) giving thanks to the Father, the One who qualifies you to share in the inheritance of the Saints in the light. (13) He rescued us from the powers 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 a [visible] image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, (16) because everything in heaven and on earth was created by Him — the visible and the invisible — whether thrones or dominions, whether rulers or authorities, everything has been made by Him and for Him. (17) He is before all things, and in him all things cohere (18) and he is the head of the body, the Church. He is ruler, firstborn from among the dead, that he should be preeminent among all things. (19) For it pleased Him for all the fullness to dwell in him (20) and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, whether those upon the earth or those in the heavens. (21) You also, once upon a time, were estranged—hostile in your thinking and wicked behavior, (22) but now you have been reconciled in his body of flesh through death— to present you holy and blameless, irreproachable before his face, (23) if indeed you remain in the faith, being found steadfast and not dislodged from the hope of the Good News which you heard being proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a servant (24) I rejoice now in my sufferings on your behalf, and I am filling up, in my body, what was lacking concerning the afflictions of Christ, with respect to his own body, which is the Church, (25) of which I myself was born a servant, according to the stewardship given to me among you, to fulfill the word of God, (26) the mystery hidden from the ages and generations but now revealed to his saints, (27) to whom God desired to make known among the Gentiles the riches of the splendor of these mysteries, which is Messiah in you, the hope of glory. (28) We are preaching Him, counseling and teaching every person in all wisdom in order that we might present every person mature in Christ. (29) I toil also in this, striving according to his work which is working powerfully in me.