Chapter 1

¹Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Timotheus the brother, ²to the saints in Colossae, and to the faithful brethren in Christ: Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ! ³We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always praying for you, ⁴having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love that [is] to all the saints, ⁵because of the hope that is laid up for you in the heavens, which ye heard of before in the word of the truth of the good news, ⁶which is present to you, as also in all the world, and is bearing fruit, as also in you, from the day in which ye heard, and knew the grace of God in truth; ⁷as ye also learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-servant, who is for you a faithful ministrant of the Christ, ⁸who also did declare to us your love in the Spirit. ⁹Because of this, we also, from the day in which we heard, do not cease praying for you, and asking that ye may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰to your walking worthily of the Lord to all pleasing, in every good work being fruitful, and increasing to the knowledge of God, ¹¹in all might being made mighty according to the power of His glory, to all endurance and long-suffering with joy. ¹²Giving thanks to the Father who did make us meet for the participation of the inheritance of the saints in the light, ¹³who did rescue us out of the authority of the darkness, and did translate [us] into the reign of the Son of His love, ¹⁴in whom we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of the sins, ¹⁵who is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation, ¹⁶because in him were the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things through him, and for him, have been created, ¹⁷and himself is before all, and the all things in him have consisted. ¹⁸And himself is the head of the body -- the assembly -- who is a beginning, a first-born out of the dead, that he might become in all [things] -- himself -- first, ¹⁹because in him it did please all the fulness to tabernacle, ²⁰and through him to reconcile the all things to himself -- having made peace through the blood of his cross -- through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens. ²¹And you -- once being alienated, and enemies in the mind, in the evil works, yet now did he reconcile, ²²in the body of his flesh through the death, to present you holy, and unblemished, and unblameable before himself, ²³if also ye remain in the faith, being founded and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the good news, which ye heard, which was preached in all the creation that [is] under the heaven, of which I became -- I Paul -- a ministrant. ²⁴I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and do fill up the things lacking of the tribulations of the Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the assembly, ²⁵of which I -- I did become a ministrant according to the dispensation of God, that was given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God, ²⁶the secret that hath been hid from the ages and from the generations, but now was manifested to his saints, ²⁷to whom God did will to make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this secret among the nations -- which is Christ in you, the hope of the glory, ²⁸whom we proclaim, warning every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, ²⁹for which also I labour, striving according to his working that is working in me in power.