Ephesians 4

₁I, Paul, am in jail because I serve the Lord. I have something important to ask you: God has chosen you and you now belong to Him. That is why you must live like people who belong to God. ₂Do not think that you are better than other people, but be humble and patient. Do not try to change other people to be like you. You must accept each other because you love each other. ₃The Holy_Spirit has tied you together, and you are like one body. You must try very hard to live like people who are one body. You must live in peace. ₄All of you are part of the same body and there is only one Holy_Spirit who is in your hearts. God has chosen you all, you belong to Him and He will give you the same wonderful things that He has promised to do for us. ₅All of you have one and the same Lord, you believe the same things, and there is only one baptism. ₆There is only one God who is the Father of us all. He rules over everyone and everything, He works through all people and He is in everyone.

₇Christ gave all of us his grace and He gave each of us the gift that He wanted to give us. The grace that He gave us is like a gift. ₈That is why we read in the Old_Testament:

₉We also read:

This means that Christ first came down to earth. ₁₀Yes, Christ came down to earth and then He went back again to the highest heaven. He did this so that He can rule forever and everywhere.

₁₁And Christ gave us gifts. He gave us these gifts: the apostles, the prophets, the leaders who preach the Good_News and those who help the believers and teach them. ₁₂Christ gave these leaders to the church so that they can help God's people do the work better and better for Him, so that the church, that is like the body of Christ, can grow stronger and bigger. ₁₃Christ wants us to believe the same things and we must know Him, the Son of God, very well. We must be like children who grew up and who are now adults. We must be like Christ, who is as God wants Him to be.

₁₄We must not think like children anymore. We must not believe cunning people who teach things that are not_true. They want to show us ways that are wrong. People who believe them are like something that floats on the sea or something that is blown by the wind from one place to another place. ₁₅We must always speak the truth and always love each other. Then we will become more and more like Christ, who is our Head. ₁₆The church is like a body and it has many parts. Christ makes all the parts work together in one body. Each part of the body must do its work and together the body will grow and become stronger. This happens when we love and help each other.

₁₇Now I am going to say something very important: The Lord says you must stop living like Gentile people as you lived before. The things they say and think are foolish. ₁₈The Gentiles live like people who can not understand. They are far away from God. They do not have real_life because they do not want to listen to God and they do not want to know Him. Their hearts are hard, and they do not want to turn to God. ₁₉They do not feel ashamed when they do something wrong. They want to do more and more bad things because they always want to have more money and more things.

₂₀But you have met Christ and you have learned that what they do is wrong. ₂₁Yes, someone told you about Christ and you learned from Him and now you know that Jesus Himself is the truth. ₂₂You have learned that you must stop living as you lived before, because you were bad and you did all the wrong things that you wanted to do, things that would make you die_forever. ₂₃But you have learned that you must change and think differently and that you must become new people. ₂₄Yes, God has changed you and made you new people, so now you must live like new people. You must truly live as God wants and you must do what He says.

₂₅That is why you must stop telling lies. You must tell the truth to one another because we all belong to each other. ₂₆When you get angry, you must not sin. When you are angry with each other, don't stay angry all day. You must make peace before it gets dark. ₂₇Don't do what the devil tells you to do. ₂₈The people who steal other people's things must stop doing it. They must work hard so that they can have money to give to people who have nothing.

₂₉Do not say anything bad about other people. Say only things that will help them to believe more strongly so that it will help those who are listening to you.

₃₀Do not make God's Holy_Spirit sad. The Spirit shows that you belong to God and that God will free you from sin on the last day. ₃₁Do not hate other people and do not remember only the bad things that they have done. Do not get angry with people or punish them or shout at them or say bad things about them. Don't do anything that is bad. ₃₂You must be friendly to each other. You must feel sorry for each other and help each other. Christ died and God has forgiven you. That is why you must forgive one another.