Parallel Bible results for "ephesians 5"

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.

King James Version KJV

1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;

2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;

4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.

5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them.

8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:

9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)

10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.