¶ I would ye knew what fighting I have for your sakes and for them of Laodicia, and for as many as have not seen my person in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted and knit together in love, and in all riches of full understanding, for to know the mystery of God the father and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This I say lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I present with you in the spirit joying and beholding the order that ye keep, and your steadfast faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Iesu the Lord, even so walk rooted and built in him, and steadfast in the faith, as ye have learned: and therin be plenteous in giving thanks.
¶ Beware lest any man come and spoil you thorow philosophy and deceitful vanity, thorow the traditions of men, and ordinances after the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are full in him, which is the head of all rule and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with circumcision made without hands, by putting off the sinful body off the flesh, thorow the circumcision that is in Christ, in that ye are buried with him thorow baptism, in whom ye are also risen again thorow faith, that is wrought by the operation of God which raised him from death.
¶ And hath with him quickened you also which were dead in sin in the uncircumcision of your flesh, and hath forgiven our trespasses, and hath put out the obligation that was against us, made in the law written, and that hath he taken out of the way, and hath fastened it on his cross, and hath spoiled rule and power, and hath made a shew of them openly, and hath triumphed over them in his own person.
¶ Let no man therefore trouble your consciences about meat and drink: or for a piece of an holyday, as the holyday of the new moon or of the saboth daye, which are nothing but shadows of things to come: but the body is in Christ. Let no man make you shoot at a wrong mark, which after his own imagination walketh in the humbleness and holiness of angels, things which he never saw: causeless puffed up with his fleshly mind, and holdeth not the head, whereof all the body by joints and couples receiveth nourishment, and is knit together, and increaseth with the increasing that cometh of God.
¶ Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from doctrine of the world: Why as though ye yet lived in the world, are ye led with traditions of them that say? Touch not, Taste not, Handle not: which all perish with the using of them, and are after the commandments, and doctrines of men: which things have the similitude of wisdom in chosen holiness, and humbleness, and in that they spare not the body, and do the flesh no worship unto his need.
© Faith of God
William Tyndale 1526