Efésios 5

Instructions about how wives and husbands, children and parents, and slaves and masters should behave toward each other.

22,23 Because husbands have authority over [MET] their wives, just as all of us believers form one group under the authority of Christ, you women should submit yourselves to the authority of your husbands just as you submit yourselves to the Lord Jesus. He is the one who saves all his people from the guilt of their sins. 24 Just like all believers submit themselves to the authority of Christ, the women must submit themselves completely to the authority of their husbands.

25 Each of you husbands, love your wife as Christ loved all of us who would become believers, with the result that he willingly died for our sake, 26 in order that he might ◄set us apart for himself/cause us to belong to him►. That is, by revealing his message to us, he wanted to remove the guilt of our sin, just like people remove dirt from something by washing it [MET]. 27 Christ did that in order that he might cause all of us believers to be a glorious group of people that belong to him, people that do not have any moral flaws/imperfections, but instead might be completely pure [DOU] when he gathers us ◄to his presence/to himself►. 28 In the same way, each man should love his wife as he loves his own body. Men who love their wives, it is as though they love themselves. 29,30 This is shown by the fact that no one ever hated his own body. Instead, he feeds his own body and cares for it, just like Christ also cares for all us believers. We have become one group of believers that belongs to him [MET]. 31 What someone has written in the Scriptures about people who marry is this,

When a man and a woman marry, they should ◄permanently leave/no longer live with► their fathers and mothers. They should be joined as husband and wife, and the two of them shall become as though they were one [MET] person.

32 It is very difficult to understand the meaning of these things that God has now revealed to me, but I am telling you that those words also refer to the relationship between Christ and all those who belong to him. 33 However, as for you(pl), each man must love his wife just as he loves himself, and each woman must respect her husband.