1 | *I*, the prisoner in [the] Lord, exhort you therefore to walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye have been called, |
2 | with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love; |
3 | using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. |
4 | [There is] one body and one Spirit, as ye have been also called in one hope of your calling; |
5 | one Lord, one faith, one baptism; |
6 | one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all. |
7 | But to each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ. |
8 | Wherefore he says, Having ascended up on high, he has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men. |
9 | But that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? |
10 | He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things; |
11 | and *he* has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, |
12 | for the perfecting of the saints; with a view to [the] work of [the] ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ; |
13 | until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at [the] full-grown man, at [the] measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ; |
14 | in order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of *that* teaching [which is] in the sleight of men, in unprincipled cunning with a view to systematized error; |
15 | but, holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ: |
16 | from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply, according to [the] working in [its] measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love. |
17 | This I say therefore, and testify in [the] Lord, that ye should no longer walk as [the rest of] the nations walk in [the] vanity of their mind, |
18 | being darkened in understanding, estranged from the life of God by reason of the ignorance which is in them, by reason of the hardness of their hearts, |
19 | who having cast off all feeling, have given themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greedy unsatisfied lust. |
20 | But *ye* have not thus learnt the Christ, |
21 | if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as [the] truth is in Jesus; |
22 | [namely] your having put off according to the former conversation the old man which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts; |
23 | and being renewed in the spirit of your mind; |
24 | and [your] having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness. |
25 | Wherefore, having put off falsehood, speak truth every one with his neighbour, because we are members one of another. |
26 | Be angry, and do not sin; let not the sun set upon your wrath, |
27 | neither give room for the devil. |
28 | Let the stealer steal no more, but rather let him toil, working what is honest with [his] hands, that he may have to distribute to him that has need. |
29 | Let no corrupt word go out of your mouth, but if [there be] any good one for needful edification, that it may give grace to those that hear [it]. |
30 | And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which ye have been sealed for [the] day of redemption. |
31 | Let all bitterness, and heat of passion, and wrath, and clamour, and injurious language, be removed from you, with all malice; |
32 | and be to one another kind, compassionate, forgiving one another, so as God also in Christ has forgiven you. |