to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He has made us accepted in the One having been loved.

It is through union with him and through his blood that we have been delivered and our offenses forgiven,

and in arranging, when the time should have fully come, that everything in heaven and on earth should be unified in Christ??11 the Christ through whom it is our lot to have been predestined by the design of him who in everything carries out the purpose of his will,

in union with whom we were made God's portion, since we had been foreordained in accordance with the purpose of Him who in everything carries out the plan of His will,

to win praise for his glory, by having been the first to believe in Christ.

You too, as you have heard the message of the truth, the good news that means your salvation, and as you have trusted in Him too, have been stamped with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit,

(the eyes of your hearts having been enlightened), so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what [are] the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints,

of which number we all have formerly been, leading our dissolute lives in gratifying the desires of our sensual imaginations: and were indeed obnoxious to the divine displeasure, as other. Gentiles were:

has made us, though dead because of our shortcomings, live again in fellowship with Christ -- it is by His unmerited favor that you have been saved.

For it is by His unmerited favor through faith that you have been saved; it is not by anything that you have done, it is the gift of God.

It has not been earned, so that no one can boast of it.

For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them.

that ye were at that time apart from Christ, having been alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope, and without God, in the world;

But now through your union with Christ Jesus you who were once far away have through the blood of Christ been brought near.

For he is our peace, who has made the two into one, and by whom the middle wall of division has been broken down,

and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed.

having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, the Messiah Jesus himself being the cornerstone.

in whom every building having been fitly framed together, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord;

by whom also ye have been built up together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

that is, if you have heard how God's favor has been entrusted to me for you,

that by revelation the mystery has been made known to me, (according as I have written before briefly,

by reading which you can understand my knowledge of the mystery of Christ,??5 which in other generations was not made known to the children of men as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,

which in the earlier ages, so different from the present, was not made known to mankind as fully as now, but through the Spirit it has been revealed to His Holy apostles and prophets --

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,

Of which I have been made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effectual working of his power.

To me, less than the least of all saints, has this grace been given, to announce among the nations the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ,

and to make all men see what the fellowship of the mystery is, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, which made all things through Jesus Christ,

that the Christ may dwell through the faith in your hearts, in love having been rooted and founded,

having been rooted and grounded in love, so that ye may be able to grasp with all the sanctified what is the breadth and length and depth and height,

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live in a way that is worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

There is one body, and one spirit, even as ye have been called to one hope of your calling;

But in accordance with the measure of Christ's gift, His favor has been bestowed upon each one of us.

Whose thoughts are dark, to whom the life of God is strange because they are without knowledge, and their hearts have been made hard;

That is not the way you have been taught what Christ means,

If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

and put on the new self which has been created in the likeness of God, which fruits in right and holy living inspired by the truth.

He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but rather must labor, doing useful work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with those in need.

You must stop offending the Holy Spirit of God by whom you have been stamped for the day of redemption.

be kind to each other, be tender-hearted, be generous to each other as God has been generous to you in Christ.

So, it says, "You who are asleep, wake up and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you [i.e., illuminate you]." [Note: The foregoing words may have been an early saying, used at someone's immersion, which included the ideas of "rising up" (See Col. 2:12) and "illumination" (See Heb. 6:4)].