Ephesians 4:32

4:32 Instead, ¹  be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you. ² 

Ephesians 2:7

2:7 to demonstrate in the coming ages ³  the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward ⁴  us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 4:19

4:19 Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. ⁵ 

Ephesians 1:8

1:8 that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight.

Ephesians 5:3

5:3 But ⁶  among you there must not be either sexual immorality, impurity of any kind, ⁷  or greed, as these are not fitting for the saints. ⁸ 

Ephesians 1:5

1:5 He did this by predestining ⁹  us to adoption as his ¹⁰  sons ¹¹  through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure ¹²  of his will –

Ephesians 4:31

4:31 You must put away every kind of bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and evil, slanderous talk.

Ephesians 1:6-7

1:6 to the praise of the glory of his grace ¹³  that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. ¹⁴  1:7 In him ¹⁵  we have redemption through his blood, ¹⁶  the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

Ephesians 1:9

1:9 He did this when he revealed ¹⁷  to us the secret ¹⁸  of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth ¹⁹  in Christ, ²⁰ 

Ephesians 5:9

5:9 for the fruit of the light ²¹  consists in ²²  all goodness, righteousness, and truth –

Ephesians 6:18

6:18 With every prayer and petition, pray ²³  at all times in the Spirit, and to this end ²⁴  be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints.

¹ tc ‡ Although most witnesses have either δέ (de; Ì⁴⁹ א A D² Ψ 33 1739^mg Ï lat) or οὖν (oun; D* F G 1175) here, a few important mss lack a conjunction (Ì⁴⁶ B 0278 6 1739* 1881). If either conjunction were originally in the text, it is difficult to explain how the asyndetic construction could have arisen (although the dropping of δέ could have occurred via homoioteleuton). Further, although Hellenistic Greek rarely joined sentences without a conjunction, such does occur in the corpus Paulinum on occasion, especially to underscore a somber point. “Instead” has been supplied in the translation because of stylistic requirements, not textual basis. NA²⁷ places δέ in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.

² tn Or “forgiving.”

³ tn Or possibly “to the Aeons who are about to come.”

⁴ tn Or “upon.”

⁵ sn Greediness refers to an increasing desire for more and more. The point is that sinful passions and desires are never satisfied.

⁷ tn The term “But” translates the δέ (de) in a contrastive way in light of the perfect obedience of Jesus in vv. 1-2 and the vices mentioned in v. 3.

⁸ tn Grk “all impurity.”

⁹ tn Grk “just as is fitting for saints.” The καθώς (kaqws) was rendered with “as” and the sense is causal, i.e., “for” or “because.” The negative particle “not” (“for these are not proper for the saints”) in this clause was supplied in English so as to make the sense very clear, i.e., that these vices are not befitting of those who name the name of Christ.

⁹ tn Grk “by predestining.” Verse 5 begins with an aorist participle dependent on the main verb in v. 4 (“chose”).

¹⁰ tn Grk “to himself” after “through Jesus Christ.”

¹¹ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).” Although some modern translations remove the filial sense completely and render the term merely “adoption” (cf. NAB, ESV), the retention of this component of meaning was accomplished in the present translation by the phrase “as…sons.”

¹² tn Or “good pleasure.”

¹¹ tn Or “to the praise of his glorious grace.” Many translations translate δόξης τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ (doxh" th" carito" autou, literally “of the glory of his grace”) with τῆς χάριτος as an attributed genitive (cf., e.g., NIV, NRSV, ESV). The translation above has retained a literal rendering in order to make clear the relationship of this phrase to the other two similar phrases in v. 12 and 14, which affect the way one divides the material in the passage.

¹² tn Grk “the beloved.” The term ἠγαπημένῳ (hgaphmenw) means “beloved,” but often bears connotations of “only beloved” in an exclusive sense. “His dearly loved Son” picks up this connotation.

¹³ tn Grk “in whom” (the relative clause of v. 7 is subordinate to v. 6). The “him” refers to Christ.

¹⁴ sn In this context his blood, the blood of Jesus Christ, refers to the price paid for believers’ redemption, which is the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross.

¹⁵ tn Or “He did this by revealing”; Grk “making known, revealing.” Verse 9 begins with a participle dependent on “lavished” in v. 8; the adverbial participle could be understood as temporal (“when he revealed”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “lavished,” or as means (“by revealing”). The participle has been translated here with the temporal nuance to allow for means to also be a possible interpretation. If the translation focused instead upon means, the temporal nuance would be lost as the time frame for the action of the participle would become indistinct.

¹⁶ tn Or “mystery.” In the NT μυστήριον (musthrion) refers to a divine secret previously undisclosed.

¹⁷ tn Or “purposed,” “publicly displayed.” Cf. Rom 3:25.

¹⁸ tn Grk “in him”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

¹⁷ tc Several mss (Ì⁴⁶ D² Ψ Ï) have πνεύματος (pneumatos, “Spirit”) instead of φωτός (fwtos, “light”). Although most today regard φωτός as obviously original (UBS⁴ gives it an “A” rating), a case could be made that πνεύματος is what the author wrote. First, although this is largely a Byzantine reading (D² often, if not normally, assimilates to the Byzantine text), Ì⁴⁶ gives the reading much greater credibility. Internally, the φωτός at the end of v. 8 could have lined up above the πνεύματος in v. 9 in a scribe’s exemplar, thus occasioning dittography. (It is interesting to note that in both Ì⁴⁹ and א the two instances of φωτός line up.) However, written in a contracted form, as a nomen sacrum (pMnMs) – a practice found even in the earliest mss – πνεύματος would not have been easily confused with fwtos (there being only the last letter to occasion homoioteleuton rather than the last three). Further, the external evidence for φωτός is quite compelling (Ì⁴⁹ א A B D* F G P 33 81 1739 1881 2464 pc latt co); it is rather doubtful that the early and widespread witnesses all mistook πνεύματος for φωτός. In addition, πνεύματος can be readily explained as harking back to Gal 5:22 (“the fruit of the Spirit”). Thus, on balance, φωτός appears to be original, giving rise to the reading πνεύματος.

¹⁸ tn Grk “in.” The idea is that the fruit of the light is “expressed in” or “consists of.”

¹⁹ tn Both “pray” and “be alert” are participles in the Greek text (“praying…being alert”). Both are probably instrumental, loosely connected with all of the preceding instructions. As such, they are not additional commands to do but instead are the means through which the prior instructions are accomplished.

²⁰ tn Grk “and toward it.”