Colossians 1:13–22

¹³For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, ¹⁴who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

Christ Is Supreme

¹⁵Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

¹⁶for through him God created everything

in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can see

and the things we can’t see—

such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him.

¹⁷He existed before anything else,

and he holds all creation together.

¹⁸Christ is also the head of the church,

which is his body.

He is the beginning,

supreme over all who rise from the dead.

So he is first in everything.

¹⁹For God in all his fullness

was pleased to live in Christ,

²⁰and through him God reconciled

everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth

by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

²¹This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. ²²Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.