The verb krinō means primarily “to judge” (see, for example, in a similar context, Rom 14.3). Here the more general make rules may be more appropriate (compare Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “let no one dictate to you…”). Other ways of translating it are “criticize” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy Barclay), “take you to task” (Moffatt New English Bible). Jerusalem Bible has “never let anyone else decide….” What you eat or drink: such a regulation seems to be based on Jewish distinctions between ritually pure and impure foods (see Rom 14.1-4, 1 Tim 4.3-5, Heb 9.10, 13.9; see also Mark 7.17-20, Acts 10.10-16), or else springs from widespread Greek ideas that by abstaining from food and drink (especially from meat and wine) a person was able more adequately to worship the gods.

Rather than distinguishing between solids and liquids, as we normally do in Indo-european languages, a number of languages make a distinction between “cold foods” and “hot foods,” but this may have nothing to do with temperature. Actually it is a classification which includes both solids and liquids but is designed to embrace all kinds of foods, largely on the basis of what is regarded as their effects upon the digestive and physiological processes of the body. Some translators have wanted to use such a basic set of distinctions, but it probably is unwise since it introduces a distinction which was not true of biblical times and which will cause certain further complications in other passages. A more satisfactory equivalent in such cases may be simply “foods that are chewed and foods that are drunk.”

Other matters involved are holy days, the New Moon Festival, and the Sabbath, which seem to represent yearly, monthly, and weekly cultic rites (compare Gal 4.10; see 1 Chr 23.31; 2 Chr 31.3; Ezek 45.17; Hos 2.11). The holy days are annual religious festivals; the New Moon Festival (only here in the NT) was celebrated every new moon, and the Sabbath was the Jewish weekly holy day, the seventh day of the week, a day for rest from physical labor and for worship. Again this seems to point to a Jewish background, but some commentators, like Lohse, see Greek influence here, since “the elemental powers” (the ruling spirits of the universe, 2.8, 20) controlled the movements of the stars and thus determined the calendar of religious rites and festivals.

Holy days may be translated as “certain days each year when people worship” or “those days which people each year set aside for worshiping God.” Sometimes holy days are simply “special days for worship.”

The New Moon Festival must often be expressed in the plural since it refers to festivals which are celebrated each new moon. Sometimes these are called “celebrations when the moon is thin” or idiomatically, “celebrations when the moon is about to conceive,” that is to say, in anticipation of the waxing moon, regarded as a kind of pregnancy.

The Sabbath must likewise be rendered in many languages as a plural, for example, “those days each week when one worships” or “the weekly rest days.” Since the Hebrew root underlying the word sabbath actually refers to resting, it is general preferable to translate the Sabbath as “day of rest.” It may then be appropriately interpreted by different groups as either to seventh day of the week or the first day of the week, though increasingly in various parts of the world, Sunday is being regarded as the last day of the week (a part of the “weekend”), and Monday is spoken of as the first day of the week. Accordingly, such phrases as “seventh day” and “first day” may involve complications because of shifts in meaning.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .