1 PAUL, apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will, and Timothy the brother,
2 to the saints at Colossæ and faithful brethren in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
Thanksgiving for the Colossians
3 We thank: God the Father of our: Lord Jesus: Christ always praying for you,
4 having heard of your: faith in Christ Jesus, and 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 in you also, from the day ye heard and knew the grace of: God in truth;
7 even as ye learned from Epaphras our: beloved fellow-bondman, who is a faithful minister of the Christ on your behalf,
8 who also declared to us your: love in Spirit.
Prayer for the Colossians
9 For this cause we also, from the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and ask for you, that ye be filled with the knowledge of his: will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
10 to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing in every good work bearing fruit, and increasing in: 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 to the Father, who fitted you 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 the redemption, the forgiveness of: sins:
Christ Is Preeminent in Creation
15 who is the invisible God’s image, firstborn of all creation;
16 for in him were: all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the 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, and in him: all things consist.
18 And HE is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, firstborn from the dead; that in all HE might have pre-eminence.
Christ Is Preeminent in Redemption
19 For the whole fulness was pleased to dwell in him;
20 and through him to reconcile: all things unto him, having made peace through the blood of his: cross: through him, whether the things upon the earth, or those in the heavens.
21 And you, being alienated before and enemies in: mind in the evil: works,
22 yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his: flesh through: death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him:
23 if so that ye continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard: preached in all creation: under the: heaven; whereof I Paul became minister.
Christ Is Preeminent in the Church
24 Now I rejoice in my: sufferings for you, and fill up on my part what are lacking of the afflictions of the Christ in my: flesh for his: body, which is the church;
25 whereof I became minister, according to the dispensation of: God: given me toward you, to fulfill the word of: God,
26 the mystery: hid from the ages and from the 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 nations, 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 also toil, striving according to his: working, which worketh in me with power.