The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Epistle of the Blessed Apostle Paul to the Ephesians
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Chapter 3
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With this in mind, I fall on my knees; I, Paul, of whom Jesus Christ has made a prisoner for the love of you Gentiles.✻
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You will have been told how God planned to give me a special grace for preaching to you;
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how a revelation taught me the secret I have been setting out briefly here;✻
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briefly, yet so as to let you see how well I have mastered this secret of Christ’s.
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It was never made known to any human being in past ages, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, and it is this:
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that through the gospel preaching the Gentiles are to win the same inheritance, to be made part of the same body, to share the same divine promise, in Christ Jesus.
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With what grace God gives me (and he gives it in all the effectiveness of his power), I am a minister of that gospel;
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on me, least as I am of all the saints, he has bestowed this privilege, of making known to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ,
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of publishing to the world the plan of this mystery, kept hidden from the beginning of time in the all-creating mind of God.
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The principalities and powers of heaven are to see, now, made manifest in the Church, the subtlety of God’s wisdom;
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such is his eternal purpose, centred in Christ Jesus our Lord,
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who gives us all our confidence, bids us come forward, emboldened by our faith in him.
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Let there be no discouragement, then, over the affliction I undergo on your behalf; it is an honour done to you.✻
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With this in mind, then, I fall on my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
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that Father from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its title.✻
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May he, out of the rich treasury of his glory, strengthen you through his Spirit with a power that reaches your innermost being.
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May Christ find a dwelling-place, through faith, in your hearts; may your lives be rooted in love, founded on love.
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May you and all the saints be enabled to measure, in all its breadth and length and height and depth,✻
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the love of Christ, to know what passes knowledge. May you be filled with all the completion God has to give.
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He whose power is at work in us is powerful enough, and more than powerful enough, to carry out his purpose beyond all our hopes and dreams;
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may he be glorified in the Church, and in Christ Jesus, to the last generation of eternity. Amen.
