Concerning this the Scripture says: "He led a host of captives, when He went up on high, and granted gifts to men."

What does "He went up" mean, except that He had first gone down into the lower regions of the earth?

And He has given some men to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers,

so that we may not be babies any longer, or like sailors tossed about and driven around by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men through their cunning in inventing new methods of error.

So I mean this and now testify to it in the name of the Lord: You must now stop living as the heathen usually do, in the frivolity of their minds,

The man who used to steal must now stop stealing; rather, he must keep on working and toiling with his own hands at some honest vocation, so as to have something to contribute to the needy.

You married men must love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her,

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,

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

This is a great secret; I mean this about Christ and the church.

But each one of you married men must love his wife as he loves himself, and the married woman, too, must respect her husband.

Heartily and cheerfully keep on working as slaves, as though it were for the Lord and not for men,