Epistle to the Ephesians - The New Testament

¹ As God's dear children, then, take him as your pattern,

² and follow Christ by loving as he loved you, giving himself up for us as an offering and a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God.

³ Among you there must be not even a mention of sexual vice or impurity in any of its forms, or greed: this would scarcely become the holy people of God!

⁴ There must be no foul or salacious talk or coarse jokes -- all this is wrong for you; there should rather be thanksgiving.

⁵ For you can be quite certain that nobody who indulges in sexual immorality or impurity or greed -- which is worshipping a false god -- can inherit the kingdom of God.

⁶ Do not let anyone deceive you with empty arguments: it is such behaviour that draws down God's retribution on those who rebel against him.

⁷ Make sure that you do not throw in your lot with them.

⁸ You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; behave as children of light,

⁹ for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness and uprightness and truth.

¹⁰ Try to discover what the Lord wants of you,

¹¹ take no part in the futile works of darkness but, on the contrary, show them up for what they are.

¹² The things which are done in secret are shameful even to speak of;

¹³ but anything shown up by the light will be illuminated

¹⁴ and anything illuminated is itself a light. That is why it is said: Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

¹⁵ So be very careful about the sort of lives you lead, like intelligent and not like senseless people.

¹⁶ Make the best of the present time, for it is a wicked age.

¹⁷ This is why you must not be thoughtless but must recognise what is the will of the Lord.

¹⁸ Do not get drunk with wine; this is simply dissipation; be filled with the Spirit.

¹⁹ Sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs among yourselves, singing and chanting to the Lord in your hearts,

²⁰ always and everywhere giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²¹ Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²² Wives should be subject to their husbands as to the Lord,

²³ since, as Christ is head of the Church and saves the whole body, so is a husband the head of his wife;

²⁴ and as the Church is subject to Christ, so should wives be to their husbands, in everything.

²⁵ Husbands should love their wives, just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her

²⁶ to make her holy by washing her in cleansing water with a form of words,

²⁷ so that when he took the Church to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless.

²⁸ In the same way, husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself.

²⁹ A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church,

³⁰ because we are parts of his Body.

³¹ This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife, and the two become one flesh.

³² This mystery has great significance, but I am applying it to Christ and the Church.

³³ To sum up: you also, each one of you, must love his wife as he loves himself; and let every wife respect her husband.