| 5 | Ephesians | ||
| 1 | In a word, as God's dear children, try to be like him, | ||
| 2 | and live in love as Christ loved you, and gave himself up on your behalf as an offering and sacrifice whose fragrance is pleasing to God. | ||
| 3 | Fornication and indecency of any kind, or ruthless greed, must not be so much as mentioned among you, as befits the people of God. | ||
| 4 | No coarse, stupid, or flippant talk; these things are out of place; you should rather be thanking God. | ||
| 5 | For be very sure of this: no one given to fornication or indecency, or the greed which makes an idol of gain, has any share in the kingdom of Christ and of God. | ||
| 6 | Let no one deceive you with shallow arguments; it is for all these things that God's dreadful judgement is coming upon his rebel subjects. | Walk as Children of Light Eph.5.6-21 | |
| 7 | Have no part or lot with them. | ||
| 8 | For though you were once all darkness, now as Christians you are light. Live like men who are at home in daylight, | ||
| 9 | for where light is, there all goodness springs up, all justice and truth. | ||
| 10 | Make sure what would have the Lord's approval; | ||
| 11 | take no part in the barren deeds of darkness, but show them up for what they are. | ||
| 12 | The things they do in secret it would be shameful even to mention. | ||
| 13 | But everything, when once the light has shown it up, is illumined, and everything thus illumined is all light. | ||
| 14 | And so the hymn says: Rise from the dead, And Christ will shine upon you.' | ||
| 15 | Be most careful then how you conduct yourselves: like sensible men, not like simpletons. | ||
| 16 | Use the present opportunity to the full, for these are evil days. | ||
| 17 | So do not be fools, but try to understand what the will of the Lord is. | ||
| 18 | Do not give way to drunkenness and the dissipation that goes with it, but let the Holy Spirit fill you: | ||
| 19 | speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and songs; sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord; | ||
| 20 | and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ give thanks every day for everything to our God and Father. | ||
| 21 | Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. | ||
| 22 | Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord; | Wives and Husbands Eph.5.22-33 | |
| 23 | for the man is the head of the woman, just as Christ also is the head of the church. Christ is, indeed, the Saviour of the body; | ||
| 24 | but just as the church is subject to Christ, so must women be to their husbands in everything. | ||
| 25 | Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for it, | ||
| 26 | to consecrate it, cleansing it by water and word, | ||
| 27 | so that he might present the church to himself all glorious, with no stain or wrinkle or anything of the sort, but holy and without blemish. | ||
| 28 | In the same way men also are bound to love their wives, as they love their own bodies. In loving his wife a man loves himself. | ||
| 29 | For no one ever hated his own body: on the contrary, he provides and cares for it; and that is how Christ treats the church, | ||
| 30 | because it is his body, of which we are living parts. | ||
| 31 | Thus it is that (in the words of Scripture) 'a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become a single body'. | - a man shall leave his father and mother Eph.5.31 - Gn.2.24 | |
| 32 | It is a great truth that is hidden here. I for my part refer it to Christ and to the church, | ||
| 33 | but it applies also individually: each of you must love his wife as his very self; and the woman must see to it that she pays her husband all respect. | ||
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