For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.

I became a servant of this gospel according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by the exercise of his power.

and to enlighten everyone about God’s secret plan – a secret that has been hidden for ages in God who has created all things.

The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms.

and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

and live in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.

Let nobody deceive you with empty words, for because of these things God’s wrath comes on the sons of disobedience.

For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand.

until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God – a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature.

For you can be confident of this one thing: that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.