¹ Therefore I urge y’all,

I the prisoner in the Lord,

to walk

in a manner worthy of the calling

with which y’all have been called,

² with all humility and gentleness,

with patience,

bearing with one another in love,

³ being zealous to keep the one-ness of the Spirit

with the bond of peace:

⁴ one body and one Spirit,

just as y’all were called by one hope of y’all’s calling,

⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

⁶ one God and Father

of everyone,

who is over all and through all and in all.

⁷ But to each one of us was given grace/gift

according to the measure of the gift of the Messiah.

⁸ Therefore it says:

“Having ascended to the height,

he took captive the captive forces;

he gave gifts to people.”

⁹ Now, what is “he ascended,”

except that he also descended to the lower regions of the land?

¹⁰ The one who descended,

he is also the one who ascended

high above all things in the heavenly realms,

in order that he might fulfill all things.

¹¹ And he gave some on the one hand as apostles,

and some prophets,

and some evangelists,

and some as shepherds and teachers,

¹² for the equipping of the holy ones

for the work of the ministry,

for the building of the body of the Messiah,

¹³ until we all attain

unto the unity of the faith

and unto the knowing of the Son of God,

unto a mature man,

unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Messiah,

¹⁴ so that we might no longer be babies,

tossed by waves

and driven by every wind of teaching

done by the trickery of humans,

in the craftiness

of a scheme of deception,

¹⁵ but doing truth in love,

let us grow up in everything into him,

who is the head,

Messiah

¹⁶ from whom all the body,

being joined together

and being united together

through every supporting joint,

according to the working by the measure of each one of the parts,

produces the growth of the body

for the building up of itself in love.