The key word, though, is “take you captive,” a single and very rare Greek word: sylagōgōn. Change one letter—a single pen stroke in the Greek—and it would become synagōgōn, “lead you into the synagogue.” We remember how, in Philippians 3, Paul warned against the katatomē, “mutilation,” as a contemptuous pun on peritomē, “circumcision.” In the same way, he is here sweeping aside any possibility that Jewish (or Jewish Christian) teachers might come and persuade the Colossian Jesus-followers to get circumcised.
