Colossians 2 good news bible

Here is the book of Colossians 2 in the Good News Bible (GNB):

Colossians 2

1 So then, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep living in him. The root of all this is the fact that you were raised up with him when you heard the message of truth, the gospel.

2 Christ himself is our life. Although he was dead, he now lives by the God who gives him life. You, too, have been raised up with him to a new kind of life, one that is always reaching out and learning and becoming more like him.

3 In him you were also circumcised, having been made alive by the Spirit, which is like the circumcision that is done with a knife. This is not just a removal of the old, but a removal of the old self, with all its wicked ways.

4 In the process of being circumcised, you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

5 You were dead because of your sins and because you were uncircumcised, but God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins.

6 He cancelled the record of the charges against us, which stood against us and condemned us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross.

7 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, leading them along in triumphal procession by it.

8 So don't let anyone judge you by what they eat or drink, or with regard to a festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

9 These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the reality itself is found in Christ.

10 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

11 And 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.

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

13 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him—

14 if indeed you continue in your faith, established and firm, not shifting 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.

15 Now I rejoice in what was suffered 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.

16 And I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power.

17 Although I want to do so, I find that because of the sinful nature the law is within me, I am a slave to the law of sin.

18 But because of the sin that is within me, I find that the law of sin is at work within me, keeping me from obeying the law of God.

19 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

20 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but because of the sinful nature I am under God's law, in the flesh, I am a slave to the law of sin.

21 But thank God! He has made me his own. He has given me this responsibility to present you as holy and blameless in his sight, if only I do not run my race for nothing and vainly.

22 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, so that with the help of the Spirit, I might be pure and not fall into the same sin.

23 I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may somehow be corrupted from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

24 For if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

25 I am giving you these instructions, Timothy, so that with them you can wage a good warfare, holding on to faith and a good conscience.

26 Those who are against us are like people who are fighting against the wind, or like people who are trying to grasp something that is slipping away from them.

27 They are like people who are trying to grasp something that is slipping away from them, and they will not be able to do so.

28 So keep your senses alert and keep your spirit awake, and you will not be led astray.