Ephesians 2–3

Chapter 2

¹and you, being dead in your offences and sins— ²in which ye once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience: ³among whom we also all once had our conversation in the lusts of our flesh, doing what the flesh and the thoughts willed to do, and were children, by nature, of wrath, even as the rest:

⁴but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith he loved us, ⁵(we too being dead in offences,) has quickened us with the Christ, (ye are saved by grace,) ⁶and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, ⁷that he might display in the coming ages the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God’s gift: ⁹not on the principle of works, that no one might boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them.

¹¹Wherefore remember that ye, once nations in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that called circumcision in the flesh done with the hand; ¹²that ye were at that time without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: ¹³but now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ.

¹⁴For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of enclosure, ¹⁵having annulled the enmity in his flesh, the law of commandments in ordinances, that he might form the two in himself into one new man, making peace; ¹⁶and might reconcile both in one body to God by the cross, having by it slain the enmity; ¹⁷and, coming, he has preached the glad tidings of peace to you who were afar off, and the glad tidings of peace to those who were nigh. ¹⁸For through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God, ²⁰being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone, ²¹in whom all the building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.

Chapter 3

¹For this reason I Paul, prisoner of the Christ Jesus for you nations, ²(if indeed ye have heard of the administration of the grace of God which has been given to me towards you, ³that by revelation the mystery has been made known to me, (according as I have written before briefly, ⁴by which, in reading it, ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ,) ⁵which in other generations has not been made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the power of the Spirit, ⁶that they who are of the nations should be joint heirs, and a joint body, and joint partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus by the glad tidings; ⁷of which I am become minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me, according to the working of his power. ⁸To me, less than the least of all saints, has this grace been given, to announce among the nations the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ, ⁹and to enlighten all with the knowledge of what is the administration of the mystery hidden throughout the ages in God, who has created all things, ¹⁰in order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God, ¹¹according to the purpose of the ages, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, ¹²in whom we have boldness and access in confidence by the faith of him. ¹³Wherefore I beseech you not to faint through my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

¹⁴For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, ¹⁶in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man; ¹⁷that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love, ¹⁸in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; ¹⁹and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God. ²⁰But to him that is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think, according to the power which works in us, ²¹to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen).