Colossians:1

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* Paul , an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God , and Timothy the brother , * to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colossae : Grace be to you , and peace , from God our Father . * We give thanks to God , the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , praying always for you , * since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus , and of the love which ye have to all the saints , * on account of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens , of which ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel , * which is come to you , as it is in all the world , and is bearing fruit and growing , as it doth also in you , from the day ye heard it , and knew the grace of God in truth ; * even as ye learned from Epaphras our beloved fellow –servant , who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf ; * who also brought to our knowledge your love in the Spirit . * On this account we also , from the day we heard of it , cease not to pray for you , and to ask that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding ; * that ye may walk worthily of the Lord so as to please him in all things , bearing fruit in every good work , and increasing in the knowledge of God ; * endued with all power according to the might of his glory unto all patience and long –suffering with joy ; * giving thanks to the Father , who enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light ; * who rescued us from the empire of darkness , and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son ; * in whom we have our redemption , the forgiveness of our sins ; –– * who is the image of the invisible God , the first –born of the whole creation ; * for in him were created all things , those in the heavens , and those on the earth , the visible and the invisible , whether thrones , or dominions , or principalities , or powers , all things have been created through him and for him ; * and he is before all things , and in him all things subsist . * And he is the head of the body , the church ; since he is the beginning , the first –born from the dead , that he may be in all things pre –eminent ; * for God was pleased that in him all the fullness should dwell , and by him to reconcile all things to himself , * having made peace through the blood of his cross , by him , I say , whether the things on earth , or those in the heavens . * And you , that were once alienated , and enemies in your mind in wicked works , yet now hath he reconciled * in the body of his flesh through his death , to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable in his sight ; * if ye indeed continue in the faith grounded and settled , and not moved away from the hope of the gospel , which ye heard , which hath been preached in the whole creation under heaven ; of which I Paul became a minister . * Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you , and fill up instead that which is wanting of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh on behalf of his body , which is the church ; * of which I became a minister , according to the stewardship which God entrusted to me , for you , to fulfill the word of God , * the mystery which hath been hidden for ages and generations , but hath been now revealed to his saints ; * to whom it was the will of God to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the gentiles , which is Christ in you , the hope of glory ; * whom we preach , warning every man , and teaching every man in all wisdom , that we may present every man perfect in Christ ; * to which end I also am laboring , striving earnestly through his working , which worketh within me mightily .

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