Colossians 1 NLT NIV Parallel

◄ Colossians 1 ►

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1This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy.

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

2We are writing to God’s holy people in the city of Colosse, who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. May God our Father give you grace and peace. Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer

2To God's holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

3We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

3We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

4For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people,

4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people--

5which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.

5the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel

6This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.

6that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world--just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace.

7You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf.

7You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf,

8He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.

8and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

9So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.

9For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,

10Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

10so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

11We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy,

11being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,

12always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.

12and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

13For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son,

13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

14who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Christ Is Supreme

14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

15Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

15The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

16for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

16For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

17He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.

17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything.

18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

19For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ,

19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

20and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

21This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.

21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

22Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

22But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation--

23But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it. Paul’s Work for the Church

23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

24I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church.

24Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

25God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you.

25I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness--

26This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people.

26the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people.

27For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

27To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

28So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ.

28He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.

29That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me.

29To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

New International Version (NIV)

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