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Masters, grant your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
Colossians 4:1 · New American Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB Masters, give to your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
  • KJV Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
  • BSB Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
  • NKJV Masters,give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
  • NLT Masters, be just and fair to your slaves. Remember that you also have a Master—in heaven.

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

Masters must treat their servants justly and fairly, remembering they too answer to a Master in heaven. It matters because authority over others is held under the higher authority of God.

Overview

Completing the household code, Paul turns to masters, requiring justice and equity rather than exploitation, a radical demand in the Roman world. The reminder that masters have their own Master in heaven levels all earthly hierarchy under God's lordship. This shared accountability to Christ subtly subverts the master-slave structure and points toward the gospel truth that all stand equal before God.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 21

  • Eph 6:8–20knowing that whatever good thing each one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is bound or free.
  • Rev 17:14These will war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and those who are with him are called chosen and faithful.”
  • Deut 24:14–15You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers, or one of the foreigners who are in your land within your gates.
  • Jas 2:13For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
  • Luke 16:1–13He also said to his disciples, “There was a certain rich man who had a manager. An accusation was made to him that this man was wasting his possessions.
  • Matt 24:48–51But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’
  • Jas 5:4Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
  • Eccl 5:8If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter: for one official is eyed by a higher one; and there are officials over them.
  • Lev 25:39–43“‘If your brother has grown poor among you, and sells himself to you; you shall not make him to serve as a slave.
  • Rev 19:16He has on his garment and on his thigh a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
  • Luke 19:15“When he had come back again, having received the kingdom, he commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by conducting business.
  • Neh 5:5–13Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we bring our sons and our daughters into bondage to be servants, and some of our daughters have been brought into bondage. It is also not in our power to help it, because other men have our fields and our vineyards.”
  • Job 24:11–12They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.
  • Isa 58:5–9Is this the fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to humble his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under himself? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Yahweh?
  • Jer 34:9–17that every man should let his male servant, and every man his female servant, who is a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free; that no one should make bondservants of them, of a Jew his brother.
  • Deut 15:12–15If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, and serves you six years; then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.
  • Lev 19:13“‘You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. “‘The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.
  • Job 31:13–15“If I have despised the cause of my male servant or of my female servant, when they contended with me;
  • Mal 3:5I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.
  • Matt 23:8–9But don’t you be called ‘Rabbi,’ for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers.
  • Isa 58:3‘Why have we fasted,’ say they, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (3)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Colossians videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Colossians 4:1YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on ColossiansMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

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 4:1 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.