Ephesians 4:1-21 ▼

1 I therefore the prisoner for the Lord, beseech you to live suitably to the offers that have been made to you:

2 with all humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another in love;

3 endeavouring to preserve the spiritual union by your affectionate attachment to one another.

4 Being one body, acted by one spirit, since you all have but one expectation in view;

5 there is but one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6 one God and father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all.

7 but to every one of us a different charge is given, according to the distribution which Christ has made;

8 wherefore 'tis said, " when he ascended up on high, he made a number of captives, and gave gifts to men."

9 now his having ascended, what does it mean, but that he had descended into the lower parts of the earth?

10 he that descended, is the same too that ascended far above all heavens, to perfect all things.

11 It is he then that made some, apostles: some, prophets: some, evangelists: and others, pastors, and teachers:

12 thus fitly qualifying his servants for their respective offices, in order to build up the body of Christ:

13 till being united in a perfect belief, and acknowledgment of the son of God, we grow up to that full state of maturity required by Christ:

14 that we should be no longer children, fluctuating, and carried about with every empty doctrine, by men vers'd in sleight and the crafty arts of deceit:

15 but being sincere in mutual love, may be entirely united to Christ, who is the head:

16 from which the whole body fitly framed, and compacted by the entire adherence and contribution of every part performing its respective function, increases and improves itself by the mutual concern of the parts.

17 This I say therefore, and conjure you by the Lord not to live for the future as other Gentiles do, in the vanity of their minds,

18 which are overspread with darkness, and averse to a religious life, thro' their innate ignorance and obduracy:

19 who without remorse, have abandon'd themselves to brutality, in gratifying every lewd unnatural passion.

20 but you have learned other things from Christ,

21 if you have heard of him, and have been taught the truth as he preach'd it: