Greek: Endusasthe (2PAPM) oun os eklektoi tou theou, hagioi kai egapemenoi, (RPPMPN) splagchna (splanchna) (bowels) oiktirmou (of mercy) chrestoteta, tapeinophrosunen, prauteta, makrothumian
Amplified: Clothe yourselves therefore, as God's own chosen ones (His own picked representatives), [who are] purified and holy and well-beloved [by God Himself, by putting on behavior marked by] tenderhearted pity and mercy, kind feeling, a lowly opinion of yourselves, gentle ways, [and] patience [which is tireless and long-suffering, and has the power to endure whatever comes, with good temper].  (Amplified Bible - Lockman)
NET: Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,  (NET Bible)

Phillips: As, therefore, God's picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another,  (Phillips: Touchstone)
Wuest: Put on therefore as your spiritual apparel, as chosen-out ones of God, saints and beloved ones, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, considerateness, longsuffering, (Erdmans) 
Young's Literal:  Put on, therefore, as choice ones of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humble-mindedness, meekness, long-suffering,

AND SO (therefore) AS THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN CHOSEN OF GOD: Endusasthe oun os eklektoi tou theou: (Isaiah 42:1; 45:4; 65:9,22; Mt 24:22,24,31; Mk 13:20,22,27; Lu 18:7; Ro 8:29-33; 9:11; 11:5-7; 2Ti 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1Pe 1:2; 2Pe 1:10; 2Jn 1:13; Rev 17:14) (See Torrey's Topic Election)

And so - The Greek preposition oun can also be translated therefore. Paul is basing the following exhortation upon the fact that we are "chosen, holy, and beloved". Like Father like son. Children should manifest a family resemblance.

Read what the Puritan saints said about election in the Valley of Vision.

Chosen (1588) (eklektos from verb eklego which in middle voice [eklegomai] means select or pick out for one's self which is derived from ek = out + lego = call) means literally the "called out ones" or "chosen out ones". The idea of eklektos is the ones who have been chosen for one's self, selected out of a larger number.

In Ephesians Paul writes...

just as He (God the Father) chose us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. (See notes Ephesians 1:4)

Election is a “sacred secret” that belongs to God’s children. It is not a doctrine that we believers explain to the unsaved. This miracle of divine election did not depend on anything that we are or that we have done; for God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Ep1:4). If God saved a sinner on the basis of merit or works, nobody would be saved. It is all done through God’s grace that it might all bring glory to God. Paul's point here is that if God has chosen them as members of His new creation, they should obey the command to conduct themselves accordingly. These are the attributes of Jesus and as His disciples we should "walk in His steps" (possible only in His power).

S Lewis Johnson writes

"The oun (“therefore”) of verse twelve makes the connection with the preceding. A new character demands new characteristics! But the appeal is not only based on the preceding; it is also based on the following words which describe the love of God which led to His sovereign election and free forgiveness of the Colossians. Paul never gets very far away from these soul-stirring truths. There is a genuine logic in the necessity of Christian commitment. If we owe all to Him, He should have all of us. But there is something more moving than logic; it is love. Principal Baillie summed it up in this way, “A true Christian is a man who never for a moment forgets what God has done for him in Christ, and whose whole comportment and whole activity have their root in the sentiment of gratitude.” Paul was in thorough agreement. The following virtues he inculcates have their root in the grace of election and forgiveness, rooted and grounded in a love that has no end." (Bibliotheca Sacra, 1964) (Bolding added)

HOLY AND BELOVED: hagioi kai êgapêmenoi: (Ro 8:29; Ep 1:4; 1 Th 1:3-6; 2 Th 2:13,14)

Holy (40) (hagios) (Click depth word study of hagios) means to be separate and distinct. Christians are to live differently than the world around lives. We do not run after the crowd and follow its fashions and value systems. We are expected to be different because we are different. We share a different kind of life.

Beloved (25) (agapao see related study of noun agape) is a verb which means to love unconditionally and sacrificially as God Himself loves sinful men (John 3:16) and the way He loves the Son (John 3:35, 15:9, 17:23, 24). Note that agapao is a verb and by its verbal nature calls for action. This quality of love is not an emotion but is an action initiated by a volitional choice, and so for example God's love will sometimes be manifest to us in discipline when we wander from His path of righteous living...

FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES (agapao) HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES. (see note Hebrews 12:6)

The glorious epithet beloved signifies that believers are objects of God's special love, dear to His heart. See Jer 31:3; Eze 16:8; Ro 1:7; Eph 2:4,5; 2 Ti 1:9; Titus 3:4-6; 1 Jn 4:19.

Notice that beloved is agapao which is in the perfect tense which signifies past completed action with present ongoing result or effect. It speaks of the permanence and enduring quality of God's love for you dear believer. His love is not like a geometric sine wave curve, up and down, up and down, but is steady and stable for we are in Christ Jesus, His beloved Son! And nothing can remove us from our position. This should be the Christian's "shouting ground"!

Election is not a cold, fatalistic doctrine. On the contrary, it is based in God’s incomprehensible love for His elect. This is the Greek word for God’s love, the love shown at Calvary, a love that denies self for the benefit of the object loved. The perfect tense is used to show the far reaching and the abiding character of that love. The saints are those who have been loved by God with the present result that they are the objects of His love. When an unbeliever sins, he is a creature breaking the laws of the holy Creator and Judge. But when a Christian sins, he is a child of God breaking the loving heart of his Father. Love is the strongest motivating power in the world. As the believer grows in his love for God, he will grow in his desire to obey Him and walk in the newness of life that he has in Christ. There is no more powerful motivating force in our lives than to remember that we are loved by God. He loves us deeply. Why should God love us the way he does? To be such people as we are and still be loved by him is one of the amazing wonders of all time. We are never to forget this. It is our basis for action.

The basis for all of the put on's is

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved."

We did not make ourselves holy. We did not elect ourselves into the kingdom of God. This true is the real "motivational speaker"! It should cause us out of Paternal love, not shaking fear, respond in obedience to His good and acceptable and perfect will.

Jesus said once to his disciples,

You have not chosen me but I chose you and appointed you that you should bear much fruit. (Jn 15:16)

Yes, we needed to make a decision for Christ, but most of us came to understand that we would never have made that decision had we not been drawn to him and chosen of him. It is His choice of us that enabled us to choose Him! No, I cannot comprehend this grand truth, but neither will I seek to destroy it or discard it just because it is beyond my ability to "reason out". God said it and that settles it, whether I believe or not, and whether I can understand it or not!

It is important to note also that when the apostle calls Christians "God's chosen people" (literally "God's elect"), he does not mean that the church has replaced Israel (see study Israel of God).

Israel is also "God's chosen people," but on a different level and for a different purpose. The promises to Israel are material: they deal with a land and a kingdom on the earth. We believe that the dreams of the prophets, so beautifully expressed by Isaiah, Amos, Hosea and others, will be fulfilled in a coming day, which Paul describes in Romans 11. God yet has a future for his earthly people. They are still his chosen people. But the church is chosen for a different purpose. Our promises are spiritual. We are

blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.  (see note Ephesians 1:3)

The church, therefore, has to do with heaven, not earth. We deal with the invisible realms of reality and not the visible kingdoms around. So, to clarify, this phrase does not mean that the church has become the "new Israel." That term is never found in Scripture. It is an unbiblical concept.

The new clothing for the new man is a striking contrast with what was put off. God chose believers out of the mainstream of mankind and drew them to Himself. They are different from the world and should "wear different (spiritual) clothes"! When believers fail to act differently from the world, they violate one of the purposes of their calling, which Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount..

Let your light shine (aorist imperative  - Do this now. It is urgent. It is a command and is not optional!) before men in such a way (this qualifier is critically important!) that they may see your good works, and glorify (give a proper opinion of) your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16) (Does your behavior give those who observe it a proper opinion of your Father Who is in heaven. You may be the only "Bible" some unbeliever ever "reads". How does your "Bible" read?)

Because we have trusted Christ, we have been set apart from the world unto the Lord. We are not our own but now (and forever) belong completely (all of us, all the time, not just on Sunday!) to Him (1Cor 6:19-20). Just as the marriage ceremony sets apart a man and a woman for each other exclusively, so salvation sets the believer apart exclusively for our soon coming Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. Would it not be a horrible thing, at the end of a wedding, to see the groom run off with the maid of honor? It is just as horrible to contemplate the Christian living for the world and the flesh.

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)

Do not love (present imperative with a negative = Stop doing this!) the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17)

PUT ON (THEREFORE): Endusasthe (2PAMM) oun:

Put on (1746) (enduo) (Click for an in depth word study on enduo) means to put on as a garment and in the middle voice (as in this verse) means to clothe oneself. The aorist imperative calls for effective action - do this now!

He explains and applies (oun = therefore) the figure of "the new man" as "the new garment." Acceptance of doctrine about Christ must lead to a decisive modification in duty. Creed should be followed by conduct. Christian doctrine and Christian duty go together. Pilots, soldiers, and athletes must dress the part, and so, too, the Christian believer. If the old man has been put off and the new man put on, the moral apparel of the old man must be laid aside and new apparel donned. Clothes do not make the man, but a man is often reflected in his clothes, and Paul would have the new man reflected in new moral attire after the image of Him that created him.

Thayer, commenting on the use of this verb in Col 3:10 (put on the new man), defines it as follows:

“to become so possessed of the mind of Christ as in thought, feeling, and action to resemble Him and, as it were, reproduce the life He lived.”

Spurgeon writes that...

A HEART OF COMPASSION: splagchna oiktirmou: (Isa 63:15; Jer 31:20; Lu 1:78; Php 1:8; 2:1; 1Jn 3:17)

The heart of compassion - "The bowels of mercies" are that tender sensitivity to others. Who could be like that? Jesus! And where is He? He is in us, so we can express compassion from our new heart indwelt by the Spirit of the Living Christ.

The garments include a heart of compassion, the nobler viscera as the seat of emotion as in Luke 1:78; Philippians 1:8 (note) Hebraism that connotes the internal organs of the human body as used figuratively to describe the seat of the emotions (cf. Mt 9:36; Lu 6:36; Ja 5:11).

Ray Stedman describes "compassion" in picturesque terms

Compassion is what we would call a "heart of pity." It is a sense of sympathy, of empathy with someone. When you come to the breakfast table, come with compassion: compassion for that strange looking creature, her hair up in curlers, shuffling around the kitchen in old slippers. Come with compassion for that gruff, stubble-faced fellow, isolated behind his morning newspaper, ignoring everybody; or those children who are trying to get everything together before they go to school. Approach life with compassion; that is what Paul is saying. Put it on when you get up in the morning. You are a new man, or new woman; therefore, live that way! (Read Dr Stedman's full sermon Put on the New)

KINDNESS: chrêstotêta:

Kindness (5544) (Chrestotes) (Click word study of chrestotes) is expressed in attitude and deed. It is the friendly and helpful spirit which seeks to meet the needs of others through kind deeds.

Spurgeon writes...

Ray Stedman writes that

Kindness is action that reveals compassion, action that arises out of a sense of sympathy. It can take many different forms---a smile, a kind word, a pat on the shoulder, an invitation to lunch, an offer of help. We are to put on compassion and kindness as we start our day and throughout the day. Many centuries ago, a certain young man from a rural setting went to live in a large city and fell in with the wrong crowd He lived a wild and dissolute life, becoming involved in many hurtful things which almost destroyed him But he heard a preacher one day and though he did not particularly appreciate his preaching, he was struck by the man He went to hear him again, and soon that preacher was able to lead him to Christ. That young man has become famous as the great St Augustine. This is what Augustine wrote of Ambrose, pastor of the cathedral in Milan: "I began to love him, not at first as a teacher of the truth, which I despaired of finding in the church, but as a fellow creature who was kind to me " What an open door kindness can he!" (Read Dr Stedman's full sermon Put on the New)

One of the most beautiful pictures of human kindness in the Bible is King David’s treatment of the crippled prince, Mephibosheth (see study) (2Sa 9:1, 13). David’s desire was to show “the kindness of God” to King Saul’s family because of his own love for Saul’s son, Jonathan. The young man chosen was Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, a poor cripple. If David had acted according to justice, he would have condemned Mephibosheth, for the man belonged to a condemned family. But David acted on the basis of love and grace.

F W Faber writes...

We must first ask ourselves what kindness is. Words, which we are using constantly soon cease to have much distinct meaning in our minds. They become symbols and figures rather than words, and we content ourselves with the general impression they make upon us. Now let us be a little particular about kindness, and describe it as accurately as we can. Kindness is the overflowing of self upon others. We put others in the place of self. We treat them as we would wish to be treated ourselves. We change places with them. For the time self is another, and others are self. Our self love takes the shape of complacence in unselfishness.

We cannot speak of the virtues without thinking of God. What would the overflow of self upon others be in Him the Ever-blessed and Eternal? It was the act of creation. Creation was divine kindness. From it as from a fountain, flow the possibilities, the powers, the blessings of all created kindness. This is an honourable genealogy for kindness. Then, again, kindness is the coming to the rescue of others, when they need it and it is in our power to supply what they need; and this is the work of the Attributes of God towards His creatures. His omnipotence is for ever making up our deficiency of power. His justice is continually correcting our erroneous judgments. His mercy is always consoling our fellow-creatures under our hardheartedness. His truth is perpetually hindering the consequences of our falsehood. His omniscience makes our ignorance succeed as if it were knowledge. His perfections are incessantly coming to the rescue of our imperfections. This is the definition of Providence; and kindness is our imitation of this divine action. (Colossians 3:12 Overflowing Kindness  F. W. Faber)

HUMILITY (contrast false humility Col 2:18, 23): tapeinophrosunên: (Click for discussion of "humility", also see Torrey's Topic "humility")

Humility (5012) (tapeinophrosune from tapeinos = low lying, then low or humble + phren = to think) (Click word study on tapeinophrosune)  literally means to think or judge with lowliness and thus speaks of humiliation of mind, lowliness of mind, lowly thinking, the quality of unpretentious behavior, a humble attitude, modesty (modesty = unassuming in the estimation of one’s abilities)  or without arrogance. The word indicates the esteeming one's self as small or recognizing one’s insufficiency but at the same time recognizing the powerful sufficiency of God!

Spurgeon writes...

neither the Romans nor the Greeks had a word for humility.

The very concept was so foreign and abhorrent to their way of thinking that they had no term to describe it.  When, during the first several centuries of Christianity, pagan writers borrowed the term tapeinophrosune, they always used it derogatorily—frequently of Christians—because to them humility was a pitiable weakness.