Ephesians 5

¹ Try, then, to imitate God as children of his that he loves

² and follow Christ loving as he loved you, giving himself up in our place as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.[*a]

³ Among you there must be not even a mention of fornication or impurity in any of its forms, or promiscuity: this would hardly become the saints!

⁴ There must be no coarseness, or salacious talk and jokes-all this is wrong for you; raise your voices in thanksgiving instead.

⁵ For you can be quite certain that nobody who actually indulges in fornication or impurity or promiscuity-which is worshipping a false god-can inherit anything of the kingdom of God.

⁶ Do not let anyone deceive you with empty arguments: it is for this loose living that God’s anger comes down on those who rebel against him.

⁷ Make sure that you are not included with them.

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

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

¹⁰ Try to discover what the Lord wants of you,

¹¹ having nothing to do with the futile works of darkness but exposing them by contrast.

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

¹³ but anything exposed by the light will be illuminated

¹⁴ and anything illuminated turns into light. That is why it is said:[*b] Wake up from your sleep, rise from the dead, 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 This may be a wicked age, but you redeem it.

¹⁷ And do not be thoughtless but recognise what is the will of the Lord.

¹⁸ Do not drug yourselves with wine, this is simply dissipation; be filled with the Spirit.

¹⁹ Sing the words and tunes of the psalms and hymns when you are together, and go on singing and chanting to the Lord in your hearts,

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

²¹ Give way to one another in obedience to Christ.

²² Wives should regard their husbands as they regard 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 submits to Christ, so should wives 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. He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words,

²⁷ so that when he took her 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 it is his body-and we are its living parts.

³¹ For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body.[*c]

³² This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the

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