Colossians 1 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

From Paul, an apostle of The One Jesus by God's will, and from Timothy our brother --

To the people set apart for God and faithful brothers and sisters in The One at Colossae: May undeserved kindness and peace be yours from God our Father.

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

because we've heard about your trust in The One Jesus and the love you have for all of God's people --

because of the hope stored up for you in heaven. You first heard about this hope through the true message of the good news

that has come to you. In the same way it's producing fruit and growing all over the world, it has been doing the same among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's undeserved kindness for what it really is.

You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow worker, who faithfully serves The One on our behalf.

He also told us about the love the Breath of God has stirred up in you.

That's why, from the day we heard about you, we haven't stopped praying for you. We keep asking God to fill you with the knowledge of what he wants through every kind of wisdom and spiritual understanding,

so that you can live in a way that is worthy of the Lord and that fully pleases him: producing fruit through every kind of good work and growing in the deep knowledge of God,

being strengthened with all power according to his magnificent might, so that you can endure anything and remain patient with joy,

giving thanks to the Father, who has made you qualified to share in the inheritance of God's people in the light.

He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

in whom we have the release from captivity -- the forgiveness of our failures.

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

Because through him everything was created -- things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or authorities or rulers or powers. Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before everything, and in him everything holds together.

He is the head of the body, which is the gathered community. He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that he would have first place in absolutely everything.

Because God was pleased to have all his fullness live in him,

and through him to restore the relationship between himself and all things -- whether things on earth or things in heaven -- by making peace through his blood, shed on the execution stake.

And you -- you who were once cut off from God, hostile in your minds because of the harmful things you did --

he has now restored the relationship with you through The One's physical body through death, to present you before God as set apart, without defect, and free from accusation --

if you continue in your trust, established and firm, not shifting from the hope you heard in the good news that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this good news.

Now I find joy in my sufferings for your sake, and in my own body I am completing what is still lacking in The One's afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the gathered community.

I became its servant by the commission God gave me for your benefit -- to fully make known the message of God,

the mystery that has been hidden for ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his people set apart for him.

God chose to make known among the non-Jewish people the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is this: The One in you -- the hope of glory.

He is the one we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we can present everyone fully mature in The One.

That's what I work so hard for, struggling with all the energy he so powerfully works in me.