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 Him also we have received an inheritance [a destiny—we were claimed by God as His own], having been predestined (chosen, appointed beforehand) according to the purpose of Him who works everything in agreement with the counsel and design of His will,

so that we who were the first to hope in Christ [who first put our confidence in Him as our Lord and Savior] would exist to the praise of His glory.

In whom you, having been given the true word, the good news of your salvation, and through your faith in him, were given the sign of the Holy Spirit of hope,

The eyes of your heart having been enlightened, that ye may know - what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in 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:

Although we were dead by our offences, gave us life together with the Christ, - by favour, ye have been saved, -

For, by his favour, have ye been saved, through means of faith, and this hath come to pass - not from you, of God, the free-gift!

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 [at this very moment] in Christ Jesus you who once were [so very] far away [from God] have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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 up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, there being, for chief corner stone, Jesus Christ himself, -

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.

If at least ye have heard of the administration of the favour of God which hath been given unto 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 other generations, had not been made known unto the sons of men, as it hath, now, been revealed by his holy apostles and prophets, in Spirit; -

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, who am less than the least of all saints, has this grace been given, that I should proclaim among the Gentiles the gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ;

And to bring to light - what is the administration of the sacred secret which had been hidden away from the ages in God, who did all things create:

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,

So I, the prisoner for the Lord, appeal to you to live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called [that is, to live a life that exhibits godly character, moral courage, personal integrity, and mature behavior—a life that expresses gratitude to God for your salvation],

There is one body and one Spirit, even as you have been marked out by God in the one hope of his purpose for you;

To each one of you, however, hath favour been given, according to the measure of the free-gift of the Christ;

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, at least, it is, him, ye have heard, and, in him, ye have been taught - even as truth is in Jesus, -

And were to put on the man of new mould, who, after God, hath been created in his truthful righteousness and loving kindness.

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.

And be not grieving the Holy Spirit of God, wherewith ye have been sealed unto a 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)].