Colossians 2 (NMV)
1 I want you to know how exhausting a conflict I endure for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have never seen me face to face.
2 My goal is that their hearts may be encouraged and strengthened, knit together in love, and attaining all the wealth that comes from full confidence and deep understanding, so that they may fully know the mystery of God; that is, Christ Himself.
3 In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 I am saying this so that no one will mislead you with persuasive arguments.
5 For even though I am physically absent, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your disciplined spiritual alignment and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
6 So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him;
7 being firmly rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
8 Be careful that no one takes carries you off like prey through empty man-made philosophy and deceptive reasoning, based on human tradition and the basic principles of the world, rather than on Christ.
9 For in Him, all the fullness of God lives in bodily form.
10 And you have been made completely filled in Him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
11 In Him, you were also circumcised, not with a physical circumcision done by human hands, but with a spiritual one: the removal of your sinful nature by the circumcision of Christ ["Circumcision of Christ" refers to His being cut off in death; a metaphor for His crucifixion, not a literal circumcision. See Isaiah 53:8.]
12 You were buried with Him in baptism, and in Him you were also raised up through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 And when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings.
14 He completely erased the written record of our debt, with its legal demands that stood against us. He took it out of the way, removing what stood between us, and nailed it to the cross.
15 He completely stripped the rulers and authorities of their power, and publicly exposed them, triumphing over them through Him.
16 Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink, or with respect to a religious holy day, the Feast of the New Moon, or a Sabbath day.
17 These are a shadow of what was to come, but the body, the true form, is Christ.
18 Let no one deprive you of your inheritance in Christ; those who delight in false humility and the worship of angels, claiming to have seen visions. Such people are inflated with pride by their fleshly way of thinking.
19 They are not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, grows with growth that comes from God.
20 If you died with Christ to the rudimentary philosophies of the world, why do you still submit to its regulations as though you still belonged to it?
21 "Don't handle! Don't taste! Don't touch!"
22 All of these things will decay you from the inside out as they are used; they are based solely on human commands and teachings.
23 These rules may appear wise with their religious worship they invented for themselves, along with humility and unsparing severity to the body, but they are of no value in restraining fleshly desires.