1. In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins.
2. At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God.
3. Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God's anger.
4. But God's mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great,
5. that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved.
6. In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world.
7. He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus.
8-9. For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it.
10. God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do.
11. You Gentiles by birth — called “the uncircumcised” by the Jews, who call themselves “the circumcised” (which refers to what men do to their bodies) — remember what you were in the past.
12. At that time you were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based on God's promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God.
13. But now, in union with Christ Jesus, you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.