Ephesians 2
1 And you were dead in your transgressions and sins.
2 You once walked in them, following the age of this world, following the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit now at work in the children of disobedience.
3 Among them, we too all once lived in the desires of our flesh, carrying out the wishes of the flesh and of our thoughts; and by nature we were children of wrath, like the rest.
4 But God is rich in mercy, and great is the love with which he loved us.
5 When we were dead in our transgressions, he gave us life together with Christ—by grace you are saved.
6 And he raised us with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.
7 This was so he might show, in the ages to come, the surpassing riches of his grace, in the kindness he has shown us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you are saved through faith; and this does not come from you, it is God's gift.
9 It does not come from works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we might walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that once you were Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by those called the circumcision, performed by hand in the flesh.
12 At that time you were without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
13 But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace: he made the two one and tore down the dividing wall, the hostility, in his flesh.
15 He abolished the Law of commandments, with its regulations, to create in himself, from the two, one new human being, making peace.
16 And to reconcile the two to God in one body through the cross, putting the hostility to death there.
17 And he came and announced the good news of peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near.
18 For through him, both of us have access to the Father in one Spirit.
19 So you are no longer strangers or outsiders, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household.
20 You were built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
21 In him the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
22 In him you too are being built together to become a dwelling place for God in the Spirit.
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