Ephesians 2:1-10 - Made Alive In Christ

¹ You also were dead because of the offenses and sins ² in the midst of which you once lived under the control of the present age of the world, and the master-spirit of the air, who is still at work among the disobedient. ³ We all lived among them once, indulging our physical cravings and obeying the impulses of our lower nature and its thoughts, and by nature we were doomed to God's wrath like other men. ⁴ But God is so rich in mercy that because of the great love he had for us, ⁵ he made us, dead as we were through our offenses, live again with the Christ. It is by his mercy that you have been saved. ⁶ And he raised us with Christ, and through our union with Christ Jesus made us sit down with him in heaven, ⁷ to show the incomparable wealth of his mercy throughout the ages to come by his goodness to us through Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by his mercy that you have been saved through faith. It is not by your own action, it is the gift of God. ⁹ It has not been earned, so that no one can boast of it. ¹⁰ For he has made us, creating us through our union with Christ Jesus for the life of goodness which God had predestined us to live.

⁶ So just as you once accepted the Christ, Jesus, as your Lord, you must live in vital union with him. ⁷ You must be rooted and built up in him and made strong in faith, just as you were taught to be, overflowing with it in your gratitude.

⁸ Take care that nobody exploits you through the pretensions of philosophy, guided by human tradition, following material ways of looking at things, instead of following Christ. ⁹ For it is in him that all the fulness of God's nature lives embodied, ¹⁰ and in union with him you too are filled with it. He is the head of all your principalities and dominions. ¹¹ Through your relation to him you have received not a physical circumcision, but a circumcision effected by Christ, in stripping you of your material nature, ¹² when in your baptism you were buried with him, and raised to life with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. ¹³ Yes, you who were dead through your misdeeds and physically uncircumcised, God raised to life with Christ. He forgave us all our misdeeds, ¹⁴ canceled the bond which stood against us, with its requirements, and put it out of our way when he nailed it to the cross. ¹⁵ He disarmed the principalities and dominions and displayed them openly, triumphing over them through him.