1 ⁹ For this reason, ever since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you. We ask God that you may receive from him all wisdom and spiritual understanding for full insight into his will, 1 ¹⁰ so that your manner of life may be worthy of the Lord and entirely pleasing to him. We pray that you may bear fruit in active goodness of every kind, and grow in the knowledge of God. 1 ¹¹ May he strengthen you, in his glorious might, with ample power to meet whatever comes with fortitude, patience, and joy; 1 ¹² and to give thanks Or: with fortitude and patience, and to give joyful thanks ... to the Father who has made you fit to share the heritage of God's people in the realm of light.
1 ¹³ He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us away into the kingdom of his dear Son, 1 ¹⁴ in whom our release is secured and our sins forgiven. - The Person & Work of Christ.  Col.1.15-20

1 ¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God;
his is the primacy over Or: image of the invisible God, born before ... all created things.
1 ¹⁶ In him everything in heaven and on earth was created,
not only things visible but also the invisible orders of thrones, sovereignties, authorities, and powers:
the whole universe has been created through him and for him.
1 ¹⁷ And he exists before everything,
and all things are held together in him.
1 ¹⁸ He is, moreover, the head of the body, the church.
He is its origin, the first to return from the dead, to be in all things alone supreme.
1 ¹⁹ For in him the complete being of God, by God's own choice, came to dwell.
1 ²⁰ Through him God chose to reconcile the whole universe to himself,
making peace through the shedding of his blood upon the cross—
to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, through him alone.

1 ²¹ Formerly you were yourselves estranged from God, you were his enemies in heart and mind, and your deeds were evil. 1 ²² But now by Christ's death in his body of flesh and blood God has reconciled you to himself, so that he may present you before himself as dedicated men, without blemish and innocent in his sight. 1 ²³ Only you must continue in your faith, firm on your foundations, never to be dislodged from the hope offered in the gospel which you heard. This is the gospel which has been proclaimed in the whole creation under heaven; and I, Paul, have become its minister.