do not cease giving thanks for you, making mention of you at my prayers,

(if indeed ye have heard of the administration of the grace of God which has been given to me towards you,

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

by which, in reading it, ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ,)

of which I am become minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me, according to the 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,

Wherefore I beseech you not to faint through my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man;

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

in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height;

and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God.

in order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of that teaching which is in the sleight of men, in unprincipled cunning with a view to systematized error;

but, holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ:

Let the stealer steal no more, but rather let him toil, working what is honest with his hands, that he may have to distribute to him that has need.

Let no corrupt word go out of your mouth, but if there be any good one for needful edification, that it may give grace to those that hear it.

But ye also, every one of you, let each so love his own wife as himself; but as to the wife I speak that she may fear the husband.

that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest be long-lived on the earth.

Put on the panoply of God, that ye may be able to stand against the artifices of the devil:

For this reason take to you the panoply of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having accomplished all things, to stand.

and for me in order that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the glad tidings,

for which I am an ambassador bound with a chain, that I may be bold in it as I ought to speak.

But in order that ye also may know what concerns me, how I am getting on, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make all things known to you;

whom I have sent to you for this very thing, that ye may know of our affairs and that he may encourage your hearts.