Ephesians 2:1-10 - Made Alive In Christ

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.

⁶ As therefore you have received the Christ, even Jesus our Lord, live and act in vital union with Him; ⁷ having the roots of your being firmly planted in Him, and continually building yourselves up in Him, and always being increasingly confirmed in the faith as you were taught it, and abounding in it with thanksgiving.

⁸ Take care lest there be some one who leads you away as prisoners by means of his philosophy and idle fancies, following human traditions and the world's crude notions instead of following Christ. ⁹ For it is in Christ that the fulness of God's nature dwells embodied, and in Him you are made complete, ¹⁰ and He is the Lord of all princes and rulers. ¹¹ In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not performed by hand, when you threw off your sinful nature in true Christian circumcision; ¹² having been buried with Him in your baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith produced within you by God who raised Him from among the dead. ¹³ And to you--dead as you once were in your transgressions and in the uncircumcision of your natural state--He has nevertheless given Life with Himself, having forgiven us all our transgressions. ¹⁴ The bond, with its requirements, which was in force against us and was hostile to us, He cancelled, and cleared it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross. ¹⁵ And the hostile princes and rulers He shook off from Himself, and boldly displayed them as His conquests, when by the Cross He triumphed over them.