Hebrew Names Version HNV
The Message Bible MSG
1 You were made alive when you were dead through trespasses and sins,
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It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.
2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience;
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You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.
3 among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
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We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us,
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Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love,
5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Messiah (by grace have you been saved),
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he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us!
6 and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Messiah Yeshua,
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Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7 that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Messiah Yeshua;
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Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
8 for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
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Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish!
9 not of works, that no one would boast.
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We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing!
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
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No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
11 Therefore remember that once you, the Goyim in the flesh, who are called "uncircumcision" by that which is called "circumcision," (in the flesh, made by hands);
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But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways
12 that you were at that time separate from Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Yisra'el, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
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had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large.
13 But now in Messiah Yeshua you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Messiah.
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Now because of Christ - dying that death, shedding that blood - you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
14 For he is our shalom, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition,
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The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance.
15 having abolished in the flesh the hostility, the law of mitzvot contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making shalom;
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He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.
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Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility.
17 He came and preached shalom to you who were far off and to those who were near.
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Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders.
18 For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
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He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones, and of the household of God,
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That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all - irrespective of how we got here - in what he is building.
20 being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Messiah Yeshua himself being the chief cornerstone;
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He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone
21 in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
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that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day - a holy temple built by God,
22 in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
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all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.