5
You are God’s kids, so you have to live the right way
1 You are God’s kids, and he loves you, so try to be like God. He is good all the time.
2 Always love other people, just like Jesus Christ loves us. He loved us so much that he took our payback, and he died instead of us. You know how people used to kill animals and burn them, to give them to God, for the good smell to make him happy. Well, just like those animals, Jesus died. When Jesus died, he gave himself to God. Jesus did that because he loved you. So you have to love other people too.
3 So don’t sleep with somebody that is not your own wife or husband, as if you are married to them. And don’t be greedy, wanting lots of money and things. You are God’s own people, so don’t even think about doing bad things like that. That’s not the way for God’s people to live.
4 And don’t talk in a dirty way or tell dirty jokes, and don’t say stupid things. It’s not right for God’s people to talk like that. Instead, when you talk, you have to thank God a lot.
5 Listen, this is true. If you do those bad and dirty things, you will never get the good things that God gives to his people. It’s like this, if you think in a dirty way, you can’t be in God’s family, you can’t be with Jesus Christ. And if you sleep with somebody that is not your wife or husband, as if you are married to them, you can’t be in God’s family. And if you are greedy, wanting lots of money and things, you can’t be in God’s family. You see, greedy people really respect money and things more than they respect God.
6 Don’t believe anyone that says you can do those bad things. Don’t let them trick you. Don’t believe their lies. God will get really angry with people that do those bad things, and he will punish those people that will not listen to him or do what he says.
7 So don’t join in with people that tell you to do bad things. Don’t do what those people do.
8 You see, you used to be like that before. You didn’t know what was right, like you were living in the dark. But then you came to our leader, Jesus, and now you are in the light. So live like people that belong to the light.
9 You know, if people have God’s light in them, they live in a way that is good, right, and true.
10 So find out what makes God happy, and do that.
11 People that belong to the darkness do wrong things. Don’t ever join in with them. Don’t do those things that are wrong and useless, but instead, tell everybody that those things are wrong.
12 Those people do bad things when nobody can see them. Those things are so bad that if we talk about them, we feel shame.
13 But whenever light shines on something, everyone can see it.
14 The light shows us what something really is. So some people say this,
“Stop doing bad things.
It’s like you are asleep, so wake up now.
It’s like you are dead, so come alive again now.
Then Jesus will show you the right way to live, it’s like he will shine light on you.”
15 So you have to be very careful to live the right way. You have to understand what is right and good. Don’t live like stupid people.
16 Do good things every time you can, because lots of people do lots of bad things these days.
17 Don’t be fools. But instead, understand what God wants.
18 Don’t get drunk. If you drink too much grog, you will go wild, and you will do stupid things. Don’t do that, but instead, keep on letting the Holy Spirit come into you and fill you up.
19 Use God’s songs to talk to each other. You know, you can sing hymns and songs that the Holy Spirit gives you. Sing and make music to God from inside yourselves.
20 Remember our leader, Jesus Christ, and always thank God, our father, for everything.
Respect each other properly
21 Each of you has to think about what other Christians want, and agree with them, because you really respect Jesus Christ.
Wives
22 You women that are wives, you have to think about what your husbands want, and agree with them, just like God’s people always have to agree with what our leader, Jesus, wants.
23 You see it is like this. Each body has a head that controls it. Well, we are God’s people, his church, and we are like a body, and Jesus is like our head. He is the one that saved us. In the same way, husbands are like the head of their wives.
24 Yes, wives always have to think about what their husbands want and agree with them, just like God’s people always have to agree with what Jesus Christ wants.
Husbands
25 Yes, and you men that are husbands, you have to do your part too. You have to always love your wives properly, just like Jesus Christ loves the people in his church properly. Jesus let people kill him so that he could save us.
26 He washed us properly clean, not just with water in the baptism ceremony, but with his word too.
27 So now we can be properly good, and he can bring us to himself, with nothing wrong with us at all.
28 Well, husbands have to love their wives properly, just like Jesus loves us. You know that everyone loves his own body and looks after it properly. Well, in the same way, husbands have to love their wives and look after them, just as much as they love their own bodies. A man that loves his wife, loves himself.
29 No man ever hates his own body. No, instead he gives it food and takes care of it. Jesus Christ does that too. He takes care of his people, the church.
30 We all belong to Jesus, like we are parts of his own body.
31 God says this in his book,
“A man will leave his mother and father and marry a woman. The man and his wife will join with each other, and their bodies will be like one body.”
32 Those words tell us important things, and they are a picture of something else too. They show us how Jesus Christ and his church are joined together, like one.
33 So I say this to you married people. Every one of you husbands has to love your own wife as much as you love yourself. And every wife has to respect her husband.