¹And although you were dead in your offenses and sins, ²in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the domain of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, ³among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest… ⁴But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, ⁵even though we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you are saved!—⁶and he raised us up together with him and seated us together with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹it is not from works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are his creative work, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we can do them. ¹¹Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh—who are called “uncircumcision” by the so-called “circumcision” that is performed on the body by human hands—¹²that 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. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility,¹⁵when 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, ¹⁶and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed. ¹⁷And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, ¹⁸so that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, ²⁰because you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, ²²in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.