Let No One Disqualify You (COL 2:16-23)

[2:16] Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.

[2:17] These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

[2:18] Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,

[2:19] and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

[2:20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—

[2:21] “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”

[2:22] (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?

[2:23] These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.