< Ephesians 2 >
1 He[F] raised you up as well, when you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2 in which you once walked, according to the Aeon of this world, the ruler of the domain of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of the disobedience; (aiōn )
3 among whom all of us also used to conduct ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and of the senses, and were by nature children of wrath, just like the rest.
4 But God—being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions—made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)
6 and raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, through His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (aiōn )
8 For by grace you have been saved, through the Faith—and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God—
9 not by works, so that no one may boast.
10 You see, we are His ‘poem’, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance in order that we should walk in them.
11 So then, remember that once you physical Gentiles—called ‘uncircumcision’ by the so-called ‘circumcision’ (that made in flesh with hands)—
12 that at that time you were apart from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have come to be near through the blood of the Christ.
14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one and broken down the barrier of separation—the law with its commandments and ordinances—
15 having abolished the enmity through His ‘flesh’, so as to mold the two [Jew and Gentile] into one new man in Himself (thus making peace),
16 and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross (by which He killed the enmity).
17 He came and proclaimed peace to us, being both far and near,
18 because through Him we both have access to the Father, by one Spirit.
19 So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household,
20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone;
21 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
22 in whom you also are being built together to become a habitation of God in spirit.
