- Mat
- Mar
- Luk
- Jon
- Act
- Rom
- 1Co
- 2Co
- Gal
- Eph
- Php
- Col
- 1Th
- 2Th
- 1Tm
- 2Tm
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- 1Jn
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Ephesians
2:1You are all dead to the blunders and failures2:2in which you once lived as part of this age. You were followers of the world and the ruling authority of the air, the spirit behind those who are stubbornly hostile.2:3We all used to act on the urges of our flesh, doing its bidding and thinking its way, and of course we deserved fury just like the rest.2:4But God, forever rich in compassion because of the love he had for us,2:5made us forever dead to blunders and alive to the Anointed— you have been saved because of his favor!
2:6Through Anointed Jesus, he raised us and seated us among the celestial ones,2:7so that he could show in the coming ages the overwhelming riches of his favor— his kindness to us who are united with him.2:8And it is because of this favor that you have been saved through faith. This is all a gift of God,2:9not something you did, so nobody can brag.2:10For we are his accomplishment, created in unity with Anointed Jesus to do the good deeds God prepared for us to continue doing.
2:11Don’t forget that once all you non-Judeans were called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who were circumcised by human hands.2:12In that age you all were apart from the Anointed, alienated from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenant of promise. You were without hope and without God in the world.2:13But now, united by the blood of Anointed Jesus, all of you who were once far away became near.2:14For he is our peace; in his flesh he joined the two groups into one, demolishing the barrier between them.2:15He made peace by voiding the law of decreed commands, so that the two would be created as one new person united with him.2:16He reconciled them both to God in one body by means of the cross, putting the hostility to death.2:17He came to bring the Gospel of peace to all of you, the far and the near.2:18So through him, both have access to the Father in one Spirit.
2:19As a result, then, you are no longer strangers and aliens but fellow citizens with the holy ones, living in the very house of God.2:20You are a house built on the foundation of the Ambassadors and prophets, whose cornerstone1 is Jesus the Anointed himself.2:21This house is constructed by the Master and is growing into a holy temple.2:22And you are also being constructed into this spiritual home of God.
- 1Both “head of the corner” and “cornerstone” are identical in meaning. Some interpret “head of the corner” as a capstone (finishing stone) or keystone (the uppermost stone that holds an arch in place). But “corner” contradicts this, and no one would trip over an upper or finishing stone.