Therefore I ask you not to lose heart because of my sufferings for your sake. This is your glory.
Because of this, I bend my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is^ n^ed, praying that in the abundance of his glory he may grant that you be confirmed in strength, of the inward man, through his spirit, and that by your faith you make the Christ dwell in love in your hearts; that, rooted and founded, you may, with all the saints, have strength to understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ and know it, though it surpasses knowledge; so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
To him who can bring to pass all things far beyond what we ask or think of through the power which is at work in us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all the generations forever and ever. Amen.
1, then, prisoner for the Lord, call upon you to proceed in a way worthy of the calling you received; with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with each other in love, striving to preserve your singleness of spirit by the bond of peace: one body and one spirit, as your calling involved one hope; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But to each one of us was given a gift of grace in accordance with the measure of the Christ's giving.
Therefore scripture says: He went up to the height, and took many captives; and he gave gifts to men. But what does: He went up mean, unless he had also gone down to the nether parts of the earth? He who went down is the same as he who went up above all the heavens, to make all things complete. And the same one granted to some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers; all these for the training of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building of the body of the Christ, until we all attain to singleness of faith and knowledge of the son of God, to complete manhood and the measure of full maturity of the Christ. Thus we shall no longer be children storm- tossed and swept along by every wind of doctrine, at the mercy of people unscrupulous in contriving our misdirection; but truthfully and with love grow in all ways toward who is our head, Christ; dependent on whom the whole body, harmonized with itself and joined together by every connective sinew, through the measured activity of every part, brings about the body's development toward its own completeness by love.
I tell you, then, and charge you by the Lord, to live no longer as the heathens do in the vanity of their minds, darkened as they are in their perceptions, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the impenetrability of their hearts. In their insensibility they have given themselves up to debauchery for the practice of every kind of vice, insatiably. This is not how you le^ed the Christ, if indeed you did hear him and were taught in him how the truth is in Jesus: namely, that you must put off, with your former way of life, your old person, the one co^pted by desire for pleasure, and be remade anew in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new person, the one created by God's will in true righteousness and piety.
Put aside falsehood, therefore, and each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, because we are members of each other. Aie you angry? Even so, do no wrong. Do not let the sun set on your anger; do not give the devil room. Let the thief steal no longer, but rather work hard with his hands to produce some good, so that he will have enough to share with one who is in need. Let no corrupt speech proceed from your mouth, but only what will help where it is needed, to bestow grace on those who hear you. And do not exasperate the Holy Spirit of God by which you have been sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and anger and rage and loud- ness and abuse be gone from you, with every kind of malice. Be kind and compassionate toward each other, forgiving each other as God through Christ forgave you.
11 Make yourselves imitators of God as beloved children, and act in love; as Christ loved you and gave himself as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God for your sake.
Let lechery and every kind of immorality or greed be, as befits saints, not even mentioned among you; avoid also indecent silly facile talk, which is unbecoming. You should rather be giving thanks. For you know well that any lecherous or vicious or greedy person, an idol worshipper, that is, has no share in the Kingdom of the Christ and God.
Let no one deceive you with empty talk. Through this, the anger of God comes against the sons of disobedience. Have nothing to do with these. Once you were darkness, now you are light, through the Lord. Conduct yourselves as children of light, for what issues from light is always goodness and righteousness, and truth. Try to determine what is well pleasing to the Lord; and have no part in the barren works of darkness, but rather expose them, for the things that are done in secret by those people are shameful even to speak of; but everything that is exposed by the light is illuminated, for everything that is illuminated is light. Therefore scripture says: Sleeper, awake, and rise from the dead, and the Christ will give you light.
So watch your behavior carefully, like wise people, not foolish ones, making the most of your time, because these are evil days. Therefore do not be thoughtless but study to know the Lord's will; and do not get ^^nk on wine, which means dissipation, but fill yourselves with the Spirit, talking to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music for the Lord in your hearts, always giving thanks for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and subordinating yourselves to each other in awe of Christ. Wives should subordinate themselves to their own husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as the Christ is the head of the church, the very savior of the body. But as the church is subordinate to the Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her sake, to sanctify her by washing her clean with water in the word, so as to set the church next to himself in glory, with no spot or wrinkle or anything of the sort upon her, but to be holy and without flaw. Thus also husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. One who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but one nourishes it and cherishes it, as the Christ does with the church, because we are parts of his own body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and the two of them will be one flesh. This is a great mystery; I ^ speaking of Christ and the church; but you also should each one of you love his own wife as he does himself, and the wife should be in awe of her husband.