6THEREFORE, SINCE JESUS was delivered to you as Christ and Lord, live your lives in union with him. 7Be rooted in him; be built in him; be consolidated in the faith you were taught; let your hearts overflow with thankfulness. 8Be on your guard; do not let your minds be captured by hollow and delusive speculations, based on traditions of man-made teaching and centred on the elemental spirits of the universe and not on Christ.
9For it is in Christ that the complete being of the Godhead dwells embodied, 10and in him you have been brought to completion. Every power and authority in the universe is subject to him as Head. 11In him also you were circumcised, not in a physical sense, but by being divested of the lower nature; this is Christ's way of circumcision. 12For in baptism you were buried with him, in baptism also you were raised to life with him through your faith in the active power of God who raised him from the dead. 13And although you were dead because of your sins and because you were morally uncircumcised, he has made you alive with Christ. 14For he has forgiven us all our sins; he has cancelled the bond which pledged us to the decrees of the law. It stood against us, but he has set it aside, nailing it to the cross. 15On that cross he discarded the cosmic powers and authorities like a garment; he made a public spectacle of them and led them as captives in his triumphal procession.
16ALLOW NO ONE therefore to take you to task about what you eat or drink, or over the observance of festival, new moon, or sabbath. 17These are no more than a shadow of what was to come; the solid reality is Christ's. 18You are not to be disqualified by the decision of people who go in for self-mortification and angel-worship, and try to enter into some vision of their own. Such people, bursting with the futile conceit of worldly minds, 19lose hold upon the Head; yet it is from the Head that the whole body, with all its joints and ligaments, receives its supplies, and thus knit together grows according to God's design.
20Did you not die with Christ and pass beyond reach of the elemental spirits of the universe? Then why behave as though you were still living the life of the world? 21Why let people dictate to you: 'Do not handle this, do not taste that, do not touch the other'— 22all of them things that must perish as soon as they are used? That is to follow merely human injunctions and teaching. 23True, it has an air of wisdom, with its forced piety, its self-mortification, and its severity to the body; but it is of no use at all in combating sensuality.
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