BibleWare/BibWare.bin/bibtrans/weymouth.exe/EPH.WNT

Text File | 1993-10-04 | 21KB | 404 lines

1:1 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God: To
 God's people who are in Ephesus--believers in Christ Jesus.
1:2 May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father
 and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
 has crowned us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
 realms in Christ;
1:4 even as, in His love, /1 He chose us as His own in Christ
 before the creation of the world, that we might be holy and
 without blemish in His presence.
1:5 For He pre-destined us to be adopted by Himself as sons
 through Jesus Christ--such being His gracious will and
 pleasure--
1:6 to the praise of the splendour of His grace with which He
 has /2 enriched us in the beloved One.
1:7 It is in Him, and through the shedding of His blood, that we
 have our /3 deliverance--the forgiveness of our offences--so
 abundant was God's grace,
1:8 the grace which He, the possessor of all wisdom and
 understanding, lavished upon us,
1:9 when He made known to us the secret of His will. And this is
 in harmony with God's merciful purpose
1:10 for the government of the world when the times are ripe for
 it--the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind /4 of
 restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ;
 yes, things in Heaven and things on earth, to find their one
 Head in Him.

1:11 In Him we Jews have been made heirs, having been chosen
 beforehand in accordance with the intention of Him whose might
 carries out in everything the design of His own will,
1:12 so that we should be devoted to the extolling of His
 glorious attributes--we who were the first to fix our hopes on
 Christ.
1:13 And in Him you Gentiles also, after listening to the
 Message of the truth, the Good News of your salvation--having
 believed in Him--were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit;
1:14 that Spirit being a pledge and foretaste of our
 inheritance, in anticipation of its full redemption--the
 inheritance which He has purchased /1 to be specially His for
 the extolling of His glory.
1:15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the
 Lord Jesus which prevails among you, and /2 of your love for
 all God's people,
1:16 offer never ceasing thanks on your behalf while I make
 mention of you in my prayers.
1:17 For I always beseech the God of our Lord Jesus Christ--the
 Father /3 most glorious--to give you /4 a spirit of wisdom and
 penetration through an intimate knowledge of Him,
1:18 the eyes of your /5 understanding being enlightened so that
 you may know what is the hope which His call to you inspires,
 what the wealth of the glory of His inheritance in God's
 people,
1:19 and what the transcendent greatness of His power /6 in us
 believers as seen in the working of His infinite might
1:20 when He displayed it in Christ by raising Him from the dead
 and seating Him at His own right hand in the heavenly realms,
1:21 /7 high above all other government and authority and power
 and dominion, and every title of sovereignty used either in
 this Age or in the Age to come.
1:22 God has put all things under His feet, and has appointed
 Him universal and supreme Head of the Church, which is His
 Body,
1:23 /8 the completeness of Him who everywhere fills the
 universe with Himself.

2:1 To you Gentiles also, who were dead through your offences
 and sins,
2:2 which were once habitual to you while you walked in the ways
 of this world and obeyed the Prince of the /1 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.
2:3 Among them all of us also formerly passed our lives,
 governed by the inclinations of our /2 lower natures, indulging
 the cravings of those /2 natures and of our own thoughts, and
 were in our original state /3 deserving of anger like all
 others.
2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the intense love
 which He bestowed on us,
2:5 caused us, dead though we were through our offences, to live
 with Christ--it is by grace that /4 you have been saved--
2:6 raised us with Him from the dead, and enthroned us with Him
 in the heavenly realms as being in Christ Jesus,
2:7 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.
2:8 For it is by grace that /4 you have been saved through
 faith; and that not of yourselves. It is God's gift, and is not
 on the ground of merit--
2:9 so that it may be impossible for any one to boast.
2:10 For we are God's own handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for
 good works which He has /5 pre-destined us to practise.
2:11 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.
2:12 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.
2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were so far away have
 been brought near through the death of Christ.

2:14 For He is our peace--He who has made /1 Jews and Gentiles
 one, and in His own human nature has broken down the hostile
 dividing wall,
2:15 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,
2:16 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.
2:17 So He came and proclaimed good news of peace to you who
 were so far away, and peace to those who were near;
2:18 because it is through Him that Jews and Gentiles alike have
 /2 access through one Spirit to the Father.
2:19 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.
2:20 You are a building which has been reared on the foundation
 of the Apostles and Prophets, the cornerstone being Christ
 Jesus Himself,
2:21 in union with whom /3 the whole fabric, fitted and closely
 joined together, is growing so as to form a holy sanctuary in
 the Lord;
2:22 in whom you also are being built up together to become a
 fixed abode for God through the Spirit.
3:1 /4 For this reason I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on
 behalf of you Gentiles--
3:2 if, that is, you have heard of the /5 work which God has
 graciously entrusted to me for your benefit,
3:3 and that by a revelation the truth hitherto kept secret was
 made known to me as I have already briefly explained it to you.
3:4 By means of that explanation, as you read it, you can judge
 of my insight into the truth of Christ
3:5 which in earlier ages was not made known to the human race,
 as it has now been revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets
 through the Spirit--
3:6 I mean the truth that the Gentiles are joint heirs with us
 Jews, and that they form one body with us, and have the same
 interest as we have in the promise which has been made good in
 Christ Jesus through the Good News,

3:7 in which I have been appointed to serve, in virtue of the
 work which God, in the exercise of His power within me, has
 graciously entrusted to me.
3:8 To me who am /1 less than the least of all God's people has
 this work been graciously entrusted--to proclaim to the
 Gentiles the Good News of the /2 exhaustless wealth of Christ,
3:9 and to show /3 all men in a clear light what my stewardship
 is. It is the stewardship of the truth which from all the Ages
 lay concealed in the mind of God, the Creator of all things--
3:10 concealed in order that the Church might now be used to
 display to the powers and authorities in the heavenly realms
 the innumerable aspects of God's wisdom.
3:11 Such was the /4 eternal purpose which He had formed in
 Christ Jesus our Lo