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New Living Translation |   | |
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| | Eph 5:1 | Follow God's example in everything you do, because you are his dear children.
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| | Eph 5:2 | Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away your sins. And God was pleased, because that sacrifice was like sweet perfume to him.
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| | Eph 5:3 | Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God's people.
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| | Eph 5:4 | Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes--these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.
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| | Eph 5:5 | You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is really an idolater who worships the things of this world.
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| | Eph 5:6 | Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the terrible anger of God comes upon all those who disobey him.
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| | Eph 5:7 | Don't participate in the things these people do.
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| | Eph 5:8 | For though your hearts were once full of darkness, now you are full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it!
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| | Eph 5:9 | For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
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| | Eph 5:10 | Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.
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| | Eph 5:11 | Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them.
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| | Eph 5:12 | It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.
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| | Eph 5:13 | But when the light shines on them, it becomes clear how evil these things are.
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| | Eph 5:14 | And where your light shines, it will expose their evil deeds. This is why it is said, "Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light."
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| | Eph 5:15 | So be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise.
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| | Eph 5:16 | Make the most of every opportunity for doing good in these evil days.
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| | Eph 5:17 | Don't act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do.
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| | Eph 5:18 | Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you.
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| | Eph 5:19 | Then you will sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, making music to the Lord in your hearts.
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| | Eph 5:20 | And you will always give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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| | Eph 5:21 | And further, you will submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
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| | Eph 5:22 | You wives will submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord.
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| | Eph 5:23 | For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of his body, the church; he gave his life to be her Savior.
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| | Eph 5:24 | As the church submits to Christ, so you wives must submit to your husbands in everything.
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| | Eph 5:25 | And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her
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| | Eph 5:26 | to make her holy and clean, washed by baptism and God's word.
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| | Eph 5:27 | He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.
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| | Eph 5:28 | In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man is actually loving himself when he loves his wife.
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| | Eph 5:29 | No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his body, which is the church.
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| | Eph 5:30 | And we are his body.
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| | Eph 5:31 | As the Scriptures say, "A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."
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| | Eph 5:32 | This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.
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| | Eph 5:33 | So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
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