Ephesians 4

¹ I, the prisoner in the Lord, implore you therefore to lead a life worthy of your vocation.

² Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience.

³ Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together.

⁴ There is one Body, one Spirit, just as you were all called into one and the same hope when you were called.

⁵ There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

⁶ and one God who is Father of all, over all, through all and within all.

⁷ Each one of us, however, has been given his own share of grace, given as Christ allotted it.

⁸ It was said that he would: When he ascended to the height, he captured prisoners, he gave gifts to men.[*a]

⁹ When it says, ‘he ascended’, what can it mean if not that he descended right down to the lower regions of the earth?

¹⁰ The one who rose higher than all the heavens to fill all things is none other than the one who descended.

¹¹ And to some, his gift was that they should be apostles; to some, prophets; to some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers;

¹² so that the saints together make a unity in the work of service, building up the body of Christ.

¹³ In this way we are all to come to unity in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God, until we become the perfect Man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself.

¹⁴ Then we shall not be children any longer, or tossed one way and another and carried along by every wind of doctrine, at the mercy of all the tricks men play and their cleverness in practising deceit.

¹⁵ If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ, who is the head

¹⁶ by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to its function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love.

¹⁷ In particular, I want to urge you in the name of the Lord, not to go on living the aimless kind of life that pagans live.

¹⁸ Intellectually they are in the dark, and they are estranged from the life of God, without knowledge because they have shut their hearts to it.

¹⁹ Their sense of right and wrong once dulled, they have abandoned themselves to sexuality and eagerly pursue a career of indecency of every kind.

²⁰ Now that is hardly the way you have learnt from Christ,

²¹ unless you failed to hear him properly when you were taught what the truth is in Jesus.

²² You must give up your old way of life; you must put aside your old self, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires.

²³ Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution

²⁴ so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.

²⁵ So from now on, there must be no more lies: You must speak the truth to one another,[*b] since we are all parts of one another.

²⁶ Even if you are angry, you must not sin:[*c] never let the sun set on your anger ‘

²⁷ or else you will give the devil a foothold.

²⁸ Anyone who was a thief must stop stealing; he should try to find some useful manual work instead, and be able to do some good by helping others that are in need.

²⁹ Guard against foul talk; let your words be for the improvement of others, as occasion offers, and do good to your listeners,

³⁰ otherwise you will only be grieving the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal for you to be set free when the day comes.

³¹ Never have grudges against others, or lose your temper, or raise your voice to anybody, or call each other names, or allow any sort of spitefulness.

³² Be friends with one another, and kind, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ.