³We give thanks always to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we^* pray for you, ⁴since we^* heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints, ⁵because of the hope reserved for you in heaven, which you have heard about beforehand in the word of truth, the gospel, ⁶that has come to you, just as also in all the world it is bearing fruit and increasing, just as also among you from the day you heard about and understood the grace of God in truth, ⁷just as you learned it^* from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf,^a ⁸who also made clear to us your love in the Spirit.

Prayer for Maturity Based on Christ’s Preeminence

⁹Because of this also we, from the day we heard about it,^* did not cease praying for you, and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual insight, ¹⁰so that you may live in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please him in all respects^b, bearing fruit in every good deed and increasing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹enabled with all power, according to his glorious might, for all steadfastness and patience with joy, ¹²giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you for a share of the inheritance of the saints in light, ¹³who has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us^* to the kingdom of the Son he loves^c, ¹⁴in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins,

Read in Logos

Colossians 1:10: … so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Footnotes

*Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“pray”) which is understood as temporal
*Here “since” is supplied as a component of the participle (“heard about”) which is understood as causal
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
aSome manuscripts have “on your behalf”
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
bLiterally “to all pleasing”
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
cLiterally “of his love”