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.

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Footnotes

  1. 5:22 Other mss omit submit
  2. 5:26 Or having cleansed
  3. 5:30 Other mss add and of his flesh and of his bones
  4. 5:31 Gn 2:24

22 —wives to their own husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church (he himself being the Savior of the body). 24 But as the church is subject to Christ, thus also wives should be subject[a] to their husbands in everything.

Husbands and Wives

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for her; 26 in order that he might sanctify her by cleansing her[b] with the washing of water by the word; 27 in order that he might present to himself the church glorious, not having a spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she may be holy and blameless. 28 Thus also husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. The one who loves his own wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as also Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 (This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.) 33 Only you also, each one of you, must thus love his own wife as himself, and the wife must respect[d] her husband.

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Footnotes

  1. Ephesians 5:24 The words “should be subject” are not in the Greek text, but are an understood repetition from the previous clause
  2. Ephesians 5:26 Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
  3. Ephesians 5:31 A quotation from Gen 2:24
  4. Ephesians 5:33 Literally “that she fear”