Colossians 1

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¹I am Paul, and this letter is from me and Timothy. He is helping me write this letter. God made me his special messenger to tell people about Jesus Christ. We are writing this letter to God’s people who live at Colossae. You joined up with Jesus Christ and you keep on trusting him, so you are like brothers and sisters to us.

²We pray that God, our Father, will keep on being really good to you, and that he will make you feel happy and quiet inside yourselves.

³People tell us good things about you, so now, every time we pray for you, we always say thank you to God for you. He is the Father of our leader, Jesus Christ. You heard the true message about Jesus, and you believed it, and now you are really sure that God will take you to heaven and give you good things there. So you keep on believing in Jesus Christ, and you keep loving all God’s people. This is what people tell us about you.

⁶And other people everywhere are hearing that same true message that you heard about Jesus. And they are believing in Jesus and doing good things too.

⁷Epaphras told you the message about Jesus. He works for Jesus Christ, just like we do, and we love him very much. When we couldn’t go to you, he went and told you the message about Jesus. He is a good man. You can always believe what he tells you.

⁸After that Epaphras came back here and told us about you. He said that the Holy Spirit now gets you to love everybody.

⁹Yes, Epaphras told us about you, and then we started to pray for you all the time. We ask God to help you to know everything he wants you to do, and that he will help you to understand spiritual things properly, and to think properly about the way you do what he wants.

¹⁰Then you will live the proper way for our leader, Jesus, and you will do lots of good things that will make him happy. And you will know God better and better all the time.

¹¹And we pray to God too and ask him to use his great power to make you strong, so that you will stay with him and will not give up. We pray that if people give you trouble, you will not worry or get upset. And we ask him to make you happy all the time.

¹²And we want you to always say thank you to our Father for the good things he does for you. You belong to him now, and he will let you get good things in heaven, the place where light shines all the time.

¹³We all used to be in the dark place, where the devil is the boss, and that devil pushed us to do bad things. But God sent his son, Jesus, to get us out of that place. He took the blame for us, so that now God will not punish us. He freed us from that bad devil boss and now we belong to the family of his son, Jesus. God loves him very much.

¹⁵Nobody can see God, but his son, Jesus, was just like God, and he showed people what God is like. You see, Jesus was there with God a long time ago, and he worked with God to make everything. They made all the things in heaven and all the things on the earth. They made the things we can see and the things we can’t see. They put all the spirit bosses there in the world that we can’t see. God worked with his son to make everything, so that now everything has to respect God’s son. Jesus is God’s first son, and he is the boss over everything.

¹⁷He was there at first, before anything else, and now he holds everything together everywhere, and keeps it all working properly.

¹⁸Jesus is the leader of all God’s people, and God’s people are the church. They are like his body, and Jesus is the head of his body. He started the church and he makes it alive. He was the first one to ever die, and then come back to life, and keep on living, so he is really great. He is greater than anyone and anything else anywhere.

¹⁹At that time, when God’s son became a man, God lived in him properly. God was happy to live in him,

²⁰so that God can get everything to come back to himself. God’s son bled and died on the cross, so that now everything can stop being God’s enemies and become God’s friends again. Some of those things are in heaven, and some on the earth, but Jesus died for them all, so they can all come back to God.

²¹And I’m talking about you too. At first you were not in God’s mob. You were his enemies. You always thought in a bad way and then you did bad things.

²²But God got Jesus Christ to live in a human body and then die, so that now you can come back to God and be his friends. God did this so that later, at the time when God will judge everyone, he will see that you are properly good and clean inside, and he will not blame you. He will say that you are not guilty.

²³God will do this for you if you stay strong, and always remember that good news you heard about Jesus, so that you keep on trusting him and know that he will save you. You see, God got his workers to tell people everywhere that Jesus died to save us. This is really good news. And I, Paul, am one of God’s workers now. My job is to tell people this good news.

²⁴Yes, I tell people the message about Jesus, and some people don’t like it and they give me trouble. But no worries, this message helps you, so I’m happy to keep on telling it. You know, Jesus Christ said we will get trouble, so I’m happy to get as much trouble as he wants me to get. And I keep helping his people. They are the church. They are like the body of Jesus Christ.

²⁵And God gets me to work for his people, so I do this to help you. My job is to tell you God’s word, and explain it all properly.

²⁶At first God didn’t let anyone know what he was going to do. He kept it a secret for a really long time. But now he is showing this secret to his people.

²⁷God wants his people to know this secret. It is very good, and it is really great for you people that are not Jews. And this is the secret. Jesus Christ lives in you people that trust him, so you can be sure that you will be great with him in heaven.

²⁸So we tell everyone about Jesus Christ. We think properly about it, then we teach them to follow Jesus and do what he says. We want everyone to join with Jesus Christ and to become really good Christians. Then we can take them to God and show them to him.

²⁹So I work really hard to do this. Jesus Christ gives me his power, and makes me strong for this hard work.