Ephesians 5:21-33 - Wives And Husbands

²¹ keep on living in subordination to one another out of reverence to Christ.

²² You married women must continue to live in subordination to your husbands, as you do to the Lord, ²³ for a husband is the head of his wife, just as Christ is the Head of the church, His body, and Saviour of it. ²⁴ Just as the church is subject to Christ, so the married women in everything must be subject to their husbands. ²⁵ You married men must love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, ²⁶ to consecrate her, after cleansing her through His word, as pictured in the water bath, ²⁷ that He might present the church to Himself as a splendid bride without a blot or wrinkle or anything like it, but to be consecrated and faultless. ²⁸ This is the way married men ought to love their wives, as they do their own bodies. The married man who loves his wife is really loving himself, ²⁹ for no one ever hates his own physical person, but he feeds and fosters it, just as Christ does the church; ³⁰ because we are parts of His body.

³¹ Therefore, a man must leave his father and mother and so perfectly unite himself to his wife that the two shall be one.

³² This is a great secret; I mean this about Christ and the church. ³³ But each one of you married men must love his wife as he loves himself, and the married woman, too, must respect her husband.

¹ You married women, in the same way, must be submissive to your husbands, so that, if any of them do not believe the message, they may be won over without a word through the living of the wives, ² when they see how chaste and respectful you are. ³ Your adornments must be not of an external nature, with braids of hair or ornaments of gold, or changes of dress, ⁴ but they must be of an internal nature, the character concealed in the heart, in the imperishable quality of a quiet and gentle spirit, which is of great value in the sight of God. ⁵ For this is the way the pious women of olden times, who set their hope on God, used to adorn themselves. ⁶ They were submissive to their husbands, as Sarah, for example, obeyed Abraham and called him master. You have become true daughters of hers, if you practice doing right and cease from every fear.

⁷ You married men, in the same way, must live with your wives in an intelligent consideration of them; you must show them deference, too, as the weaker sex, as they share with you the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.