Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he captured captives; he gave gifts to men.”

if indeed you heard about him and were taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus.

to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word,

In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will

This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God;

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

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.

that you were at that time without the Messiah, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace,

So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.