The Tongue

¹My friends, not many of you should become teachers. As you know, we teachers will be judged with greater strictness than others.

²All of us often make mistakes. But if a person never makes a mistake in what he says, he is perfect and is also able to control his whole being.

³We put a bit into the mouth of a horse to make it obey us, and we are able to make it go where we want.

⁴Or think of a ship: big as it is and driven by such strong winds, it can be steered by a very small rudder, and it goes wherever the pilot wants it to go.

⁵So it is with the tongue: small as it is, it can boast about great things. Just think how large a forest can be set on fire by a tiny flame!

⁶And the tongue is like a fire. It is a world of wrong, occupying its place in our bodies and spreading evil through our whole being. It sets on fire the entire course of our existence with the fire that comes to it from hell itself.

⁷We humans are able to tame and have tamed all other creatures—wild animals and birds, reptiles and fish.

⁸But no one has ever been able to tame the tongue. It is evil and uncontrollable, full of deadly poison.

⁹We use it to give thanks to our Lord and Father and also to curse other people, who are created in the likeness of God.

¹⁰Words of thanksgiving and cursing pour out from the same mouth. My friends, this should not happen!

¹¹No spring of water pours out sweet water and bitter water from the same opening.

¹²A fig tree, my friends, cannot bear olives; a grapevine cannot bear figs, nor can a salty spring produce sweet water.

The Wisdom from Above

¹³Are there any of you who are wise and understanding? You are to prove it by your good life, by your good deeds performed with humility and wisdom.

¹⁴But if in your heart you are jealous, bitter, and selfish, don't sin against the truth by boasting of your wisdom.

¹⁵Such wisdom does not come down from heaven; it belongs to the world, it is unspiritual and demonic.

¹⁶Where there is jealousy and selfishness, there is also disorder and every kind of evil.

¹⁷But the wisdom from above is pure first of all; it is also peaceful, gentle, and friendly; it is full of compassion and produces a harvest of good deeds; it is free from prejudice and hypocrisy.

¹⁸And goodness is the harvest that is produced from the seeds the peacemakers plant in peace.

Friendship with the World

¹Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you.

²You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it.

³And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures.

⁴Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

⁵Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, “The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires.”

⁶But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁷So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you.

⁸Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites!

⁹Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!

¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Warning against Judging One Another

¹¹Do not criticize one another, my friends. If you criticize or judge another Christian, you criticize and judge the Law. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it.

¹²God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are, to judge someone else?

Warning against Boasting

¹³Now listen to me, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.”

¹⁴You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears.

¹⁵What you should say is this: “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”

¹⁶But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong.

¹⁷So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin.

Warning to the Rich

¹And now, you rich people, listen to me! Weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you!

²Your riches have rotted away, and your clothes have been eaten by moths.

³Your gold and silver are covered with rust, and this rust will be a witness against you and will eat up your flesh like fire. You have piled up riches in these last days.

⁴You have not paid any wages to those who work in your fields. Listen to their complaints! The cries of those who gather in your crops have reached the ears of God, the Lord Almighty.

⁵Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter.

⁶You have condemned and murdered innocent people, and they do not resist you.

Patience and Prayer

⁷Be patient, then, my friends, until the Lord comes. See how patient farmers are as they wait for their land to produce precious crops. They wait patiently for the autumn and spring rains.

⁸You also must be patient. Keep your hopes high, for the day of the Lord's coming is near.

⁹Do not complain against one another, my friends, so that God will not judge you. The Judge is near, ready to appear.

¹⁰My friends, remember the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Take them as examples of patient endurance under suffering.

¹¹We call them happy because they endured. You have heard of Job's patience, and you know how the Lord provided for him in the end. For the Lord is full of mercy and compassion.

¹²Above all, my friends, do not use an oath when you make a promise. Do not swear by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Say only “Yes” when you mean yes, and “No” when you mean no, and then you will not come under God's judgment.

¹³Are any among you in trouble? They should pray. Are any among you happy? They should sing praises.

¹⁴Are any among you sick? They should send for the church elders, who will pray for them and rub olive oil on them in the name of the Lord.

¹⁵This prayer made in faith will heal the sick; the Lord will restore them to health, and the sins they have committed will be forgiven.

¹⁶So then, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you will be healed. The prayer of a good person has a powerful effect.

¹⁷Elijah was the same kind of person as we are. He prayed earnestly that there would be no rain, and no rain fell on the land for three and a half years.

¹⁸Once again he prayed, and the sky poured out its rain and the earth produced its crops.

¹⁹My friends, if any of you wander away from the truth and another one brings you back again,

²⁰remember this: whoever turns a sinner back from the wrong way will save that sinner's soul from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.

¹From Paul, who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy—

²To God's people in Colossae, who are our faithful friends in union with Christ: May God our Father give you grace and peace.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

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

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

⁵When the true message, the Good News, first came to you, you heard about the hope it offers. So your faith and love are based on what you hope for, which is kept safe for you in heaven.

⁶The gospel keeps bringing blessings and is spreading throughout the world, just as it has among you ever since the day you first heard about the grace of God and came to know it as it really is.

⁷You learned of God's grace from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is Christ's faithful worker on our behalf.

⁸He has told us of the love that the Spirit has given you.

⁹For this reason we have always prayed for you, ever since we heard about you. We ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will, with all the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives.

¹⁰Then you will be able to live as the Lord wants and will always do what pleases him. Your lives will produce all kinds of good deeds, and you will grow in your knowledge of God.

^11-12May you be made strong with all the strength which comes from his glorious power, so that you may be able to endure everything with patience. And with joy give thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to have your share of what God has reserved for his people in the kingdom of light.

¹³He rescued us from the power of darkness and brought us safe into the kingdom of his dear Son,

¹⁴by whom we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven.

The Person and Work of Christ

¹⁵Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things.

¹⁶For through him God created everything in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen things, including spiritual powers, lords, rulers, and authorities. God created the whole universe through him and for him.

¹⁷Christ existed before all things, and in union with him all things have their proper place.

¹⁸He is the head of his body, the church; he is the source of the body's life. He is the first-born Son, who was raised from death, in order that he alone might have the first place in all things.

¹⁹For it was by God's own decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God.

²⁰Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son's blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.

²¹At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought.

²²But now, by means of the physical death of his Son, God has made you his friends, in order to bring you, holy, pure, and faultless, into his presence.

²³You must, of course, continue faithful on a firm and sure foundation, and must not allow yourselves to be shaken from the hope you gained when you heard the gospel. It is of this gospel that I, Paul, became a servant—this gospel which has been preached to everybody in the world.

Paul's Work as a Servant of the Church

²⁴And now I am happy about my sufferings for you, for by means of my physical sufferings I am helping to complete what still remains of Christ's sufferings on behalf of his body, the church.

²⁵And I have been made a servant of the church by God, who gave me this task to perform for your good. It is the task of fully proclaiming his message,

²⁶which is the secret he hid through all past ages from all human beings but has now revealed to his people.

²⁷God's plan is to make known his secret to his people, this rich and glorious secret which he has for all peoples. And the secret is that Christ is in you, which means that you will share in the glory of God.

²⁸So we preach Christ to everyone. With all possible wisdom we warn and teach them in order to bring each one into God's presence as a mature individual in union with Christ.

²⁹To get this done I toil and struggle, using the mighty strength which Christ supplies and which is at work in me.

¹Let me tell you how hard I have worked for you and for the people in Laodicea and for all others who do not know me personally.

²I do this in order that they may be filled with courage and may be drawn together in love, and so have the full wealth of assurance which true understanding brings. In this way they will know God's secret, which is Christ himself.

³He is the key that opens all the hidden treasures of God's wisdom and knowledge.

⁴I tell you, then, do not let anyone deceive you with false arguments, no matter how good they seem to be.

⁵For even though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, and I am glad as I see the resolute firmness with which you stand together in your faith in Christ.

Fullness of Life in Christ

⁶Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, live in union with him.

⁷Keep your roots deep in him, build your lives on him, and become stronger in your faith, as you were taught. And be filled with thanksgiving.

⁸See to it, then, that no one enslaves you by means of the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by human beings and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ.

⁹For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity,

¹⁰and you have been given full life in union with him. He is supreme over every spiritual ruler and authority.

¹¹In union with Christ you were circumcised, not with the circumcision that is made by human beings, but with the circumcision made by Christ, which consists of being freed from the power of this sinful self.

¹²For when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and in baptism you were also raised with Christ through your faith in the active power of God, who raised him from death.

¹³You were at one time spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were Gentiles without the Law. But God has now brought you to life with Christ. God forgave us all our sins;

¹⁴he canceled the unfavorable record of our debts with its binding rules and did away with it completely by nailing it to the cross.

¹⁵And on that cross Christ freed himself from the power of the spiritual rulers and authorities; he made a public spectacle of them by leading them as captives in his victory procession.

¹⁶So let no one make rules about what you eat or drink or about holy days or the New Moon Festival or the Sabbath.

¹⁷All such things are only a shadow of things in the future; the reality is Christ.

¹⁸Do not allow yourselves to be condemned by anyone who claims to be superior because of special visions and who insists on false humility and the worship of angels. For no reason at all, such people are all puffed up by their human way of thinking

¹⁹and have stopped holding on to Christ, who is the head of the body. Under Christ's control the whole body is nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God wants it to grow.

Dying and Living with Christ

²⁰You have died with Christ and are set free from the ruling spirits of the universe. Why, then, do you live as though you belonged to this world? Why do you obey such rules as

²¹“Don't handle this,” “Don't taste that,” “Don't touch the other”?

²²All these refer to things which become useless once they are used; they are only human rules and teachings.

²³Of course such rules appear to be based on wisdom in their forced worship of angels, and false humility, and severe treatment of the body; but they have no real value in controlling physical passions.

More Proverbs

⁷I ask you, God, to let me have two things before I die:

⁸keep me from lying, and let me be neither rich nor poor. So give me only as much food as I need.

⁹If I have more, I might say that I do not need you. But if I am poor, I might steal and bring disgrace on my God.