Christ in Your Home

¹⁸ Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.^{(A) 19} Husbands,^(B) love your wives^(C) and don’t be bitter^(D) toward them. ²⁰ Children,^(E) obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. ²¹ Fathers,^(F) do not exasperate^(G) your children, so that they won’t become discouraged. ²² Slaves, obey your human^(H) masters in everything. Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.^{(I) 23} Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people,^{(J) 24} knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ. ²⁵ For the wrongdoer^(K) will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism.

4 Masters,^(L) deal with your slaves justly and fairly, since you know that you too have a Master in heaven.

Wives and Husbands

²² Wives,^(A) submit^[a](B) to your husbands^(C) as to the Lord, ²³ because the husband is the head of the wife^(D) as Christ is the head^(E) of the church. He is the Savior of the body.^{(F) 24} Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives,^(G) just as Christ loved^(H) the church and gave himself^(I) for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing^[b] her with the washing of water by the word. ²⁷ He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.^{(J) 28} In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, ³⁰ since we are members of his body.^{[c] 31} For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,^(K) and the two will become one flesh.^{[d](L) 32} This mystery^(M) is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.