1 I THEREFORE, the prisoner of the Lord, exhort you to walk worthily of the call with which you were called,
2 with all humility and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love,
3 using diligence to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
4 There is one body, and one spirit, as you also are called in one hope of your call;
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7 And to each one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
8 Wherefore he says, When he ascended on high, he took captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.
9 But this, that he ascended, what is it but that he first descended into the lower parts of the earth?
10 He that descended is the same also that ascended above all heavens, that he might fill all [places].
11 And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ,
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14 that we may be no longer children, driven about like waves and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the art of men, and the craftiness of deceitful wiles,
15 but speaking the truth with love we may grow to him in all things, who is the head, Christ;
16 by whom all the body being joined together and compacted by the supply of every joint, according to the proportionate operation of every part, makes increase of the body to the edification of itself in love.
17 This I say then and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the other gentiles walk, in the vanity of their minds,
18 with their understandings darkened, alienated from the life of God on account of the ignorance which is in them, on account of the hardness of their hearts,
19 who being without feeling have given themselves up to lewdness, to commit every impurity with greediness.
20 But you have not so learned Christ,
21 if you have indeed heard him, and been instructed by him as the truth is in Jesus,
22 that you should lay aside your former mode of life the old man destroyed by deceitful desires,
23 and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
24 and put on the new man, created after God in righteousness and true holiness.
25 Wherefore, laying aside lying let every one speak the truth to his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
26 Be angry and sin not; let not the sun go down on your wrath,
27 neither give place to the devil.
28 Let him that has stolen steal no more, but rather let him labor, doing that which is good with his hands, that he may have to give to him that needs.
29 Let no evil word proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for useful edification, that it may afford benefit to those that hear.
30 And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, by which you were sealed to the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and blasphemy, be banished from among you, with all malice.
32 But be kind one to another, merciful, giving one to another, as God also in Christ gave to you.