Dual Panel1Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.
2Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
3Don't allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed.
4Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, Christians have better uses for language than that. Don't talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn't fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.
5You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them--the usual variations on idolatry--will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God.
6Don't let yourselves get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him.
7Don't even hang around people like that.
8You groped your way through that murk once, but no longer. You're out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain. So no more stumbling around. Get on with it!
9The good, the right, the true--these are the actions appropriate for daylight hours.
10Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.
11Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are.
12It's a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see.
13Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.
14Wake up from your sleep, Climb out of your coffins; Christ will show you the light!
15So watch your step. Use your head.
16Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!
17Don't live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.
18Don't drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.
19Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ.
20Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.
21Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
22Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ.
23The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing.
24So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
25Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church--a love marked by giving, not getting.
26Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her,
27dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.
28And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor--since they're already "one" in marriage.
29No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church,
30since we are part of his body.
31And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh."
32This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church.
33And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.