• Unity of the Spirit

  • 1 Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
  • 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
  • 3 being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
  • 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;
  • 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
  • 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
  • 7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
  • 8 Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, And He gave gifts to men.”
  • 9 (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
  • 10 He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.)
  • 11 And He Himself gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
  • 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ,
  • 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ,
  • 14 so that we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming,
  • 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is Christ,
  • 16 from whom the whole body, being joined and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

  • Put On the New Man

  • 17 Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
  • 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.
  • 19 And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
  • 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way—
  • 21 if indeed you heard Him and were taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,
  • 22 to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
  • 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
  • 24 and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
  • 25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
  • 26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
  • 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.
  • 28 He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.
  • 29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for building up what is needed, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
  • 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
  • 31 Let all bitterness and anger and wrath and shouting and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
  • 32 Instead, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, graciously forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has graciously forgiven you.