---
title: "Colossians 2 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/colossians/2/
description: "He warns them against the impostures of the philosophers and the Jewish… Colossians 2 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Colossians 2

Colossians 2 is chapter 2 of 4 in the Letter to the Colossians. Here are all 23 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> He warns them against the impostures of the philosophers and the Jewish teachers, that would withdraw them from Christ.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Colossians 2 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. For I want you to know the kind of solicitude that I have for you, and for those who are at Laodicea, as well as for those who have not seen my face in the flesh.
2. May their hearts be consoled and instructed in charity, with all the riches of a plenitude of understanding, with knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ Jesus.
3. For in him are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4. Now I say this, so that no one may deceive you with grandiose words.
5. For though I may be absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit. And I rejoice as I gaze upon your order and its foundation, which is in Christ, your faith.
6. Therefore, just as you have received the Lord Jesus Christ, walk in him.
7. Be rooted and continually built up in Christ. And be confirmed in the faith, just as you have also learned it, increasing in him with acts of thanksgiving.
8. See to it that no one deceives you through philosophy and empty falsehoods, as found in the traditions of men, in accord with the influences of the world, and not in accord with Christ.
9. For in him, all the fullness of the Divine Nature dwells bodily.
10. And in him, you have been filled; for he is the head of all principality and power.
11. In him also, you have been circumcised with a circumcision not made by hand, not by the despoiling of the body of flesh, but by the circumcision of Christ.
12. You have been buried with him in baptism. In him also, you have risen again through faith, by the work of God, who raised him up from the dead.
13. And when you were dead in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he enlivened you, together with him, forgiving you of all transgressions,
14. and wiping away the handwriting of the decree which was against us, which was contrary to us. And he has taken this away from your midst, affixing it to the Cross.
15. And so, despoiling principalities and powers, he has led them away confidently and openly, triumphing over them in himself.
16. Therefore, let no one judge you as concerns food or drink, or a particular feast day, or feast days of new moons, or of Sabbaths.
17. For these are a shadow of the future, but the body is of Christ.
18. Let no one seduce you, preferring base things and a religion of Angels, walking according to what he has not seen, being vainly inflated by the sensations of his flesh,
19. and not holding up the head, with which the whole body, by its underlying joints and ligaments, is joined together and grows with an increase that is of God.
20. So then, if you have died with Christ to the influences of this world, why do you still make decisions as if you were living in the world?
21. Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle these things,
22. which all lead to destruction by their very use, in accord with the precepts and doctrines of men.
23. Such ideas have at least an intention to attain to wisdom, but through superstition and debasement, not sparing the body, and they are without any honor in satiating the flesh.

## Colossians 2 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Volo enim vos scire qualem sollicitudinem habeam pro vobis, et pro iis qui sunt Laodiciæ, et quicumque non viderunt faciem meam in carne:
2. ut consolentur corda ipsorum, instructi in caritate, et in omnes divitias plenitudinis intellectus, in agnitionem mysterii Dei Patris et Christi Jesu:
3. in quo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiæ et scientiæ absconditi.
4. Hoc autem dico, ut nemo vos decipiat in sublimitate sermonum.
5. Nam etsi corpore absens sum, sed spiritu vobiscum sum: gaudens, et videns ordinem vestrum, et firmamentum ejus, quæ in Christo est, fidei vestræ.
6. Sicut ergo accepistis Jesum Christum Dominum, in ipso ambulate,
7. radicati, et superædificati in ipso, et confirmati fide, sicut et didicistis, abundantes in illo in gratiarum actione.
8. Videte ne quis vos decipiat per philosophiam, et inanem fallaciam secundum traditionem hominum, secundum elementa mundi, et non secundum Christum:
9. quia in ipso inhabitat omnis plenitudo divinitatis corporaliter:
10. et estis in illo repleti, qui est caput omnis principatus et potestatis:
11. in quo et circumcisi estis circumcisione non manu facta in expoliatione corporis carnis, sed in circumcisione Christi:
12. consepulti ei in baptismo, in quo et resurrexistis per fidem operationis Dei, qui suscitavit illum a mortuis.
13. Et vos cum mortui essetis in delictis, et præputio carnis vestræ, convivificavit cum illo, donans vobis omnia delicta:
14. delens quod adversus nos erat chirographum decreti, quod erat contrarium nobis, et ipsum tulit de medio, affigens illud cruci:
15. et expolians principatus, et potestates traduxit confidenter, palam triumphans illos in semetipso.
16. Nemo ergo vos judicet in cibo, aut in potu, aut in parte diei festi, aut neomeniæ, aut sabbatorum:
17. quæ sunt umbra futurorum: corpus autem Christi.
18. Nemo vos seducat, volens in humilitate, et religione angelorum, quæ non vidit ambulans, frustra inflatus sensu carnis suæ,
19. et non tenens caput, ex quo totum corpus per nexus, et conjunctiones subministratum, et constructum crescit in augmentum Dei.
20. Si ergo mortui estis cum Christo ab elementis hujus mundi: quid adhuc tamquam viventes in mundo decernitis?
21. Ne tetigeritis, neque gustaveritis, neque contrectaveritis:
22. quæ sunt omnia in interitum ipso usu, secundum præcepta et doctrinas hominum:
23. quæ sunt rationem quidem habentia sapientiæ in superstitione, et humilitate, et non ad parcendum corpori, non in honore aliquo ad saturitatem carnis.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- CCC ¶ 484: "Conceived By the Power of the Holy Spirit and Born of the Virgin Mary" ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 515: The Mysteries of Christ's Life ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 722: The Spirit of Christ in the Fullness of Time ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 2502: Truth, Beauty, and Sacred Art ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 527: The Mysteries of Christ's Life ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1002: Christ's Resurrection and Ours ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 1214: What is This Sacrament Called? ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 628: Jesus Christ Was Buried ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 1227: Baptism in the Economy of Salvation ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 794: The Church - People of God, Body of Christ, Temple of the Holy Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 16: He means with regard to the Jewish observations of the distinction of clean and unclean meats; and of their festivals, new moons, and sabbaths, as being no longer obligatory.
- Verse 18: That is, by a self willed, self invented, superstitious worship, falsely pretending humility, but really proceeding from pride. Such was the worship, that many of the philosophers (against whom St. Paul speaks, ver. 8) paid to angels or demons, by sacrificing to them, as carriers of intelligence betwixt God and men; pretending humility in so doing, as if God was too great to be addressed by men; and setting aside the mediatorship of Jesus Christ, who is the head both of angels and men. Such also was the worship paid by the ancient heretics, disciples of Simon and Menander, to the angels, whom they believed to be makers and lords of this lower world. This is certain, that they whom the apostle here condemns, did not hold the head, (ver. 19,) that is, Jesus Christ, and his mediatorship; and therefore what he writes here no way touches the Catholic doctrine and practice, of desiring our good angels to pray to God for us, through Jesus Christ. St. Jerome [Epist. ad Algas.] understands by the religion or service of angels, the Jewish teachers, who sought to subject the new Christians to the observance of the Mosaic law.
- Verse 21: The meaning is, that Christians should not subject themselves, either to the ordinances of the old law, forbidding touching or tasting things unclean; or to the superstitious invention of heretics, imposing such restraints, under pretence of wisdom, humility, or mortification.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Mon, Sep 6, 2027 (computed): Monday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Colossians 1:24—2:3
- Tue, Sep 7, 2027 (computed): Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Colossians 2:6-15
- Sun, Jul 30, 2028 (computed): Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time — Second Reading, Colossians 2:12-14

Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).