Colossians 1:1-14

Evangelical Heritage Version

Greeting

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

² To the holy and faithful brothers^[a] in Christ at Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.^[b]

Paul’s Prayer for the Colossians

³ We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴ because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints ⁵ because of the hope that is stored up for you in heaven. You have already heard about this in the word of truth, the gospel ⁶ that is present with you now. The gospel is bearing fruit and growing in the entire world, just as it also has been doing among you from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth. ⁷ You learned this from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your^[c] behalf. ⁸ He is the one who told us about your love in the Spirit.^[d]

⁹ For this reason, from the day we heard about your love, we also have not stopped praying for you. We keep asking that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰ so that you might live in a way that is worthy of the Lord. Our goal is that you please him by bearing fruit in every kind of good work and by growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ as you are being strengthened with all power because of his glorious might working in you. Then you will have complete endurance and patience, joyfully ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who qualified us^[e] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

What the Father Did Through Christ

¹³ The Father rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption,^[f] the forgiveness of sins.