Colossians 1:13-27

¹³who rescued us from the empire of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son;

¹⁴in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins;—

¹⁵who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of the whole creation;

¹⁶for 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;

¹⁷and he is before all things, and in him all things subsist.

¹⁸And 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;

¹⁹for God was pleased that in him all the fullness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself,

²⁰having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him, I say, whether the things on earth, or those in the heavens.

²¹And you, that were once alienated, and enemies in your mind in wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

²²in the body of his flesh through his death, to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable in his sight;

²³if 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.

²⁴Now 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;

²⁵of which I became a minister, according to the stewardship which God entrusted to me, for you, to fulfill the word of God,

²⁶the mystery which hath been hidden for ages and generations, but hath been now revealed to his saints;

²⁷to 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;