1 To you Gentiles also, who were dead through your offences and sins, 2 which were once habitual to you while you walked in the ways of this world and obeyed the Prince of the powers of the air, the spirits that are now at work in the hearts of the sons of disobedience--to you God has given Life. 3 Among them all of us also formerly passed our lives, governed by the inclinations of our lower natures, indulging the cravings of those natures and of our own thoughts, and were in our original state deserving of anger like all others. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the intense love which He bestowed on us, 5 caused us, dead though we were through our offences, to live with Christ--it is by grace that you have been saved-- 6 raised us with Him from the dead, and enthroned us with Him in the heavenly realms as being in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that, by His goodness to us in Christ Jesus, He might display in the Ages to come the transcendent riches of His grace. 8 For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves. It is God's gift, and is not on the ground of merit-- 9 so that it may be impossible for any one to boast. 10 For we are God's own handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works which He has pre-destined us to practise. 11 Therefore, do not forget that formerly you were Gentiles as to your bodily condition. You were called the Uncircumcision by those who style themselves the Circumcised--their circumcision being one which the knife has effected. 12 At that time you were living apart from Christ, estranged from the Commonwealth of Israel, with no share by birth in the Covenants which are based on the Promises, and you had no hope and no God, in all the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were so far away have been brought near through the death of Christ. 14 For He is our peace--He who has made Jews and Gentiles one, and in His own human nature has broken down the hostile dividing wall, 15 by setting aside the Law with its commandments, expressed, as they were, in definite decrees. His design was to unite the two sections of humanity in Himself so as to form one new man, 16 thus effecting peace, and to reconcile Jews and Gentiles in one body to God, by means of His cross--slaying by it their mutual enmity. 17 So He came and proclaimed good news of peace to you who were so far away, and peace to those who were near; 18 because it is through Him that Jews and Gentiles alike have access through one Spirit to the Father. 19 You are therefore no longer mere foreigners or persons excluded from civil rights. On the contrary you share citizenship with God's people and are members of His family. 20 You are a building which has been reared on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus Himself, 21 in union with whom the whole fabric, fitted and closely joined together, is growing so as to form a holy sanctuary in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are being built up together to become a fixed abode for God through the Spirit. | |