2:1 I want to give you some concept of the tremendous struggle I’m in for your sakes, and also for those in Laodicea and whoever else hasn’t met me in person.

2:2 The struggle is to console their hearts and unite them in love, in a fully rich and firm conviction of understanding that realizes the secret of God and of the Anointed.

2:3 All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are concealed in him.

2:4 Now I am saying all this so that no one scams you with smooth talk.

2:5 Although I am not with you physically I am with you in spirit, and I’m happy to see that you are solidly aligned due to your trust in the Anointed.

2:6 Seeing that you accepted Anointed Jesus the Master, keep pace with him.

2:7 You have been founded and constructed in him and confirmed in the faith you were taught, overflowing with gratitude.

2:8 So beware that no one loots you by means of the philosophy and hollow delusion that come from human tradition; these are aligned with the elements of the world and not with the Anointed.

2:9 The entirety of the Divine Nature is embodied in him,

2:10 and you have been made complete by him who is the source of every rule and authority.

2:11 You were vicariously “circumcised”— not literally by human hands, but with the stripping-off of the physical body in the “circumcision” of the Anointed.

2:12 You were buried with him in the immersion, and you were raised with him through faith in what God did when he raised him up from the dead.

2:13 And yet you are dead— to your blunders and the “un-circumcision” of your flesh. But he made you alive with him and dealt kindly to us in all our blunders,

2:14 erasing the list of charges that were written up against us, and wiping it away by nailing it to the cross.

2:15 After getting rid of the rulers and authorities too, he triumphed over them and boldly made a public spectacle of them.

2:16 So then, do not let anyone judge you about food and drink, or about observing festivals or new moons or Sabbaths;

2:17 those are all shadows of what is to come. As the body of the Anointed,

2:18 let no one play the part of a referee against you. They’re always going on about their humility and seeing Messengers in their rituals— legends in their own carnal minds.

2:19 They have lost connection with the Head out of whom the entire body grows from God, who supplies the ligaments and connects it all together.

2:20 So if, along with the Anointed, the elements of the world are now dead to you, why, as though you still live in the world, do you subject yourselves to its rules?

2:21 “You should stay away from this, stop tasting that, don’t touch those”…

2:22 all those things will decay and be used up, since they are merely human edicts and instructions.

2:23 They do seem on the surface to be pious acts of wisdom and humility with their physical deprivations, but they are of no value for satisfying cravings.