2:1 You are all dead to the blunders and failures

2:2 in which you once lived as part of this age. You were followers of the world and the ruling authority of the air, the spirit behind those who are stubbornly hostile.

2:3 We all used to act on the urges of our flesh, doing its bidding and thinking its way, and of course we deserved fury just like the rest.

2:4 But God, forever rich in compassion because of the love he had for us,

2:5 made us forever dead to blunders and alive to the Anointed— you have been saved because of his favor!

2:6 Through Anointed Jesus, he raised us and seated us among the celestial ones,

2:7 so that he could show in the coming ages the overwhelming riches of his favor— his kindness to us who are united with him.

2:8 And it is because of this favor that you have been saved through faith. This is all a gift of God,

2:9 not something you did, so nobody can brag.

2:10 For we are his accomplishment, created in unity with Anointed Jesus to do the good deeds God prepared for us to continue doing.

2:11 Don’t forget that once all you non-Judeans were called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who were circumcised by human hands.

2:12 In that age you all were apart from the Anointed, alienated from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenant of promise. You were without hope and without God in the world.

2:13 But now, united by the blood of Anointed Jesus, all of you who were once far away became near.

2:14 For he is our peace; in his flesh he joined the two groups into one, demolishing the barrier between them.

2:15 He made peace by voiding the law of decreed commands, so that the two would be created as one new person united with him.

2:16 He reconciled them both to God in one body by means of the cross, putting the hostility to death.

2:17 He came to bring the Gospel of peace to all of you, the far and the near.

2:18 So through him, both have access to the Father in one Spirit.

2:19 As a result, then, you are no longer strangers and aliens but fellow citizens with the holy ones, living in the very house of God.

2:20 You are a house built on the foundation of the Ambassadors and prophets, whose cornerstone is Jesus the Anointed himself.

2:21 This house is constructed by the Master and is growing into a holy temple.

2:22 And you are also being constructed into this spiritual home of God.