You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil deeds,
Parallel translations
- KJV And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
- BSB Once you were alienated from God and were hostile in your minds, engaging in evil deeds.
- NKJV And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
- NASB And although you were previously alienated and hostile in attitude, engaged in evil deeds,
- NLT This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Colossians were once alienated from God and hostile in mind because of their evil deeds. This describes everyone's natural condition apart from Christ.
Overview
Paul reminds them of their former state: 'alienated and enemies in your mind' shown 'in your evil deeds.' Sin is not only outward acts but inward hostility toward God. Remembering this past makes the reconciliation of the next verse all the more astonishing.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Eph 2:12that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
- Eph 2:1–3You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins,
- Titus 3:3–7For we were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
- Rom 5:9–10Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.
- Eph 4:18being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts;
- Eph 2:19So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
- Rom 8:7–8because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.
- 1 Cor 6:9–11Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,
- Titus 1:15–16To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.
- Rom 1:30backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
- Jas 4:4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
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Christ at the center
The image of the invisible God, firstborn over creation, in whom all things hold together and all the fullness of God dwells bodily — supreme over every power.
How Colossians 1:21 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.