Colossians
2* For I want you to know what a struggle I am having for you and the ones in Laodicea and as many as have not seen my face in person, 2* that their hearts may be encouraged, they being drawn together in love and instructed into the richest certitude of insight, to the recognition of God’s secret, Christ, 3 in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. 4 I say this in order that nobody may cheat you with plausible talk. 5* For even if I am physically away, yet I am with you in the spirit, rejoicing and witnessing your good order and the solidity of your faith in Christ.
6 So, in such fashion as you took over Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, 7* rooted and upbuilt in him and solidly settled in faith as you were taught, plentiful in thanksgiving. 8 Look to it that there be not somebody who carries you off by philosophy and empty deceit along the line of human tradition, of the world’s elements and not of Christ, 9 because in him all the fullness of deity is resident in bodily form, 10 and it is in him you have been brought to fullness, him who is the head of every government and dominion; 11* in whom, also, you were circumcised with a circumcision not done by human hands, in the stripping off of the body of flesh,—in the Christ’s circumcision, 12 being buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the activities of God who raised him from the dead; 13 and you, when you were dead with your offenses and the uncircumcisedness of your flesh, he brought to life together with him, condoning all our offenses, 14* canceling the bond over us in decrees, which was opposed to us, and has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15** Disarming the governments and the dominions, he made a public show of them, celebrating his triumph over them on it.
16 So let nobody pass judgment on you in matters of eating and drinking or in respect to festival or new moon or sabbath, 17 that are a shadow of what was to be—but the body belongs to the Christ; 18*** let nobody contrive a decision against you with willful humility and worship of the angels, entering into what he has seen, flimsily inflated by his flesh-mind, 19* and not keeping hold of the Head, out of whom all the body, supplied and conjoined through the joints and sinews, makes God’s growth.
20 If you died with Christ away from the world’s elements, why, as if alive in the world, do you go in for decrees, 21 “do not take nor taste nor touch,”— 22 altogether things that are bound to perish as they are consumed,—in conformity with the commands and teachings of men? 23** which do have a show of wisdom in self-contrived religiousness and humility and severity to the body, not in some sort of honor for repletion of the flesh.