5
1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as his dearly loved children,
2 and conduct yourselves in love, just as the Messiah loved us and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God, as a fragrant aroma.
“Pay Very Close Attention to Your Conduct”
3 Now, you are to so completely avoid these things—sexual immorality and impurity of absolutely any kind, or greed—that no one can mention them in reference to you; they are entirely out of place for people set apart to belong specially and exclusively to God as holy.
4 The same goes for obscenity and foolish talk, or crude joking, which are inappropriate; your mouths are to be filled with thanksgiving.
5 For you can be sure of this: No sexually immoral or impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the Kingdom of the Messiah and God.
6 Don’t let anyone deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God is going to come upon those who refuse to obey him.
7 So don’t share in their sins and their doom.
8 For you were at one time full of darkness, but now you are full of light in union with the Lord. It is as people of the truth, who live in the light, that you are to live your lives
9 (the light produces a harvest of every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth, you see),
10 discerning what pleases the Lord;
11 don’t take part in the fruitless deeds that belong to the darkness, but rather expose them.
12 (Of the things they do in secret it is shameful even to speak).
13 The true nature and character of everything, when exposed by the light, is disclosed.
14 Everything that is disclosed, you see, stands in the light. That is why it says:
“Wake up, O sleeper,
and rise from the dead,
and the Messiah will shine on ˢyou.”
15 Pay very close attention, therefore, to your conduct, living your lives not as foolish people, but as people who are wise,
16 making the most of every opportunity, because the times are so evil.
17 That is the reason why you must not be foolish, but must understand what the Lord’s will is.
18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless behavior, but be filled by the Spirit,
19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and songs of the Spirit, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord,
20 giving thanks always for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, to God the Father,
21 submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of the Messiah.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord,
23 because a husband is the head of his wife just as the Messiah is the head of the assembly, the Messiah himself being the Savior of the body.
24 As the assembly submits herself to the Messiah, so wives are to submit to their husbands in all respects.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as the Messiah loved the assembly and gave up for her his very life,
26 in order to set her apart as a special holy possession, having cleansed her through the washing of water with a profession;
27 in order to present the assembly to himself as a glorious bride, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish—yes, so that she might belong specially and exclusively to him as holy and be blameless.
28 In the same way, husbands are under obligation to love their wives as their own bodies. A man who loves his wife loves himself.
29 No one ever hates his own body, you see. Rather, he nourishes and cares for it, just as the Messiah does the assembly,
30 since we are parts of his body.
31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”+
32 This mystery is very profound—I am speaking in reference to the Messiah and to the assembly.
33 In any case, you, too, each of you husbands, his own wife must love in this way: As himself. And a wife must make sure that she respects her husband.