Parallel Bible results for "ephesians%205"

Ephesians 5

The Message Bible MSG

1 Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.

2 Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

3 Don't allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed.

4 Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, Christians have better uses for language than that. Don't talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn't fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.

5 You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them - the usual variations on idolatry - will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God.

6 Don't let yourselves get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him.

7 Don't even hang around people like that.

8 You groped your way through that murk once, but no longer. You're out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain. So no more stumbling around. Get on with it!

9 The good, the right, the true - these are the actions appropriate for daylight hours.

10 Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.

11 Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are.

12 It's a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see.

13 Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.

14 Wake up from your sleep, Climb out of your coffins; Christ will show you the light!

15 So watch your step. Use your head.

16 Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!

17 Don't live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.

18 Don't drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.

19 Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ.

20 Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.

21 Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.

22 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ.

23 The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing.

24 So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

25 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church - a love marked by giving, not getting.

26 Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her,

27 dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.

28 And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor - since they're already "one" in marriage.

29 No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church,

30 since we are part of his body.

31 And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh."

32 This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church.

33 And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.

New International Version NIV

1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children

2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.

4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.

7 Therefore do not be partners with them.

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light

9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

10 and find out what pleases the Lord.

11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

14 This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,

16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,

19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,

20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,

27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—

30 for we are members of his body.

31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.