Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Wives and husbands

²¹ Be subject to one another out of reverence for the Messiah.

²² Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ The man, you see, is the head of the woman, just as the Messiah, too, is head of the church. He is himself the savior of the body. ²⁴ But, just as the church is subject to the Messiah, in the same way women should be subject in everything to their husbands.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as the Messiah loved the church, and gave himself for it, ²⁶ so that he could make it holy, cleansing it by washing it with water through the word. ²⁷ He did this in order to present the church to himself in brilliant splendor, without a single spot or blemish or anything of the kind—that it might be holy and without blame. ²⁸ That’s how husbands ought to love their own wives, just as they love their own bodies.

Someone who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, nobody ever hates his own flesh: he feeds it and takes care of it, just as the Messiah does with the church, ³⁰ because we are parts of his body. ³¹ “That’s why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh.”

³² The hidden meaning in this saying is very deep; but I am reading it as referring to the Messiah and the church. ³³ Anyway, each one of you must love your wife as you love yourself; and the wife must see that she respects her husband.

Children, parents, slaves and masters

6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord. This is right and proper. ² “Honor your father and your mother”—this is the first commandment that comes with a promise attached!— ³ “so that things may go well with you and that you may live a long life on earth.”

⁴ Fathers, don’t make your children angry. Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

⁵ Slaves, obey your human masters, with respect and devotion, with the same single-mindedness that you have towards the Messiah. ⁶ You must get on with your work, not only when someone is watching you, as if you were just trying to please another human being, but as slaves of the Messiah. Do God’s will from your heart. ⁷ Get on with your tasks with a kind and ready spirit as if you were serving the master himself and not human beings. ⁸ After all, you know that if anyone, slave or free, does something good, they will receive it back from the master.

⁹ Masters, do the same to them! Give up using threats. You know, after all, that the master in heaven is their master and yours, and he is no respecter of persons.