Epheser 5
- 1Therefore be imitators of God, as His dear children.
- 2And live and act lovingly, as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up to death on our behalf as an offering and sacrifice to God, yielding a fragrant odor.
- 3But fornication and every kind of impurity, or covetousness, let them not even be mentioned among you, for they ought not to be named among God's people.
- 4Avoid shameful and foolish talk and low jesting--they are all alike discreditable--and in place of these give thanks.
- 5For be well assured that no fornicator or immoral person and no money-grubber--or in other words idol-worshipper--has any share awaiting him in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.
- 6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is on account of these very sins that God's anger is coming upon the disobedient.
- 7Therefore do not become sharers with them.
- 8There was a time when you were nothing but darkness. Now, as Christians, you are Light itself.
- 9Live and act as sons of Light--for the effect of the Light is seen in every kind of goodness, uprightness and truth--
- 10and learn in your own experiences what is fully pleasing to the Lord.
- 11Have nothing to do with the barren unprofitable deeds of darkness, but, instead of that, set your faces against them;
- 12for the things which are done by these people in secret it is disgraceful even to speak of.
- 13But everything can be tested by the light and thus be shown in its true colors; for whatever shines of itself is light.
- 14For this reason it is said, "Rise, sleeper; rise from among the dead, and Christ will shed light upon you."
- 15Therefore be very careful how you live and act. Let it not be as unwise men, but as wise.
- 16Buy up your opportunities, for these are evil times.
- 17On this account do not prove yourselves wanting in sense, but try to understand what the Lord's will is.
- 18Do not over-indulge in wine--a thing in which excess is so easy--
- 19but drink deeply of God's Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and offer praise in your hearts to the Lord.
- 20Always and for everything let your thanks to God the Father be presented in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
- 21and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
- 22Married women, submit to your own husbands as if to the Lord;
- 23because a husband is the Head of his wife as Christ also is the Head of the Church, being indeed the Saviour of this His Body.
- 24And just as the Church submits to Christ, so also married women should be entirely submissive to their husbands.
- 25Married men, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself up to death for her;
- 26in order to make her holy, cleansing her with the baptismal water by the word,
- 27that He might present the Church to Himself a glorious bride, without spot or wrinkle or any other defect, but to be holy and unblemished.
- 28So too married men ought to love their wives as much as they love themselves. He who loves his wife loves himself.
- 29For never yet has a man hated his own body. On the contrary he feeds and cherishes it, just as Christ feeds and cherishes the Church;
- 30because we are, as it were, parts of His Body.
- 31"For this reason a man is to leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall be as one."
- 32That is a great truth hitherto kept secret: I mean the truth concerning Christ and the Church.
- 33Yet I insist that among you also, each man is to love his own wife as much as he loves himself, and let a married woman see to it that she treats her husband with respect.
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