Colossians 2:14-23

14We are guilty of many wrong things that are against God's laws. But Christ died on the cross on our behalf. He paid the debt of our sins. It is like he has destroyed the list of all the debts that we should pay to God.

15On the cross, Christ took away the power of the bad spirits that have authority to rule people. He showed clearly that he himself has won against them. Now everyone can see that those bad spirits have no power.

16Some people may tell you that it is wrong for you to eat or to drink certain things. Or they make rules about special festival days, about new moons, or about the Jewish days for rest. Do not agree with people like that.

17Rules like that are only like shadows of real things that would happen later. But now we have what is real, Christ himself!

18Some people may tell you that you must always serve other people like a slave. They may tell you that you must worship angels. Do not let those people speak bad things against you. They like to talk a lot about the special things that God has shown them. They think that they are very clever. But their ideas only come from human minds.

19False teachers like that do not receive their message from Christ. As God's people, we are like a body and Christ is like our head. He is the one who causes the whole body to be strong. He helps us to work well together, like the different parts of a body. Then we can all grow properly, because it is God who is helping us to grow.

20Remember that your old nature has died with Christ. So the powerful spirits that rule this world no longer have any authority over you. You do not need to serve them, because you do not belong to this world now. You do not need to obey their rules.

21They teach, ‘Do not touch things like that!’ Or, ‘Do not eat that kind of food!’ Or, ‘Keep away from that thing!’

22Rules like that are only about things that spoil when you use them. They are rules that come from human ideas.

23They teach you ideas about what you must do to worship God. They teach you to serve other people like a slave. They say that you must hurt yourself. You must show that you control your body. Rules like that may seem to be wise, but really they are not worth anything. They cannot stop our weak human nature from doing the bad things that we want to do.