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About God saving us
1 Before you knew God, you were separated from him. You were like dead people, because you had disobeyed God and done wrong. 2 At that time you lived like people who don't know God. You were sinners, always doing what is wrong. You obeyed Satan, the one who rules over the evil spirits above. And he still works today in people who do not obey God.
3 But all of us disobeyed God. We did what we wanted to do, whatever came into our minds. And we did what our bodies wanted, and anything other people were doing, we did that too.
Because of that God should have been angry with all of us, 4-5 but he had pity on us. While we were still doing wrong things, we were like dead people. But God's pity goes on forever; it never ends. God loves us so much. He is full of pity and love. And so he saved us so that we could have fellowship with Christ. God saved us because he is kind. 6 God made Jesus Christ come alive and he took him up to heaven and made him sit down to rule there. And God has taken us to heaven too, and we too are ruling with Jesus Christ because we have fellowship with Jesus Christ. 7 God has made us rule so that everyone will know that he is always very kind. And because he is kind he sent Jesus Christ to us to show us that he really loves us.
8-9 You didn't save yourself, even if you were a good person and always did good. The good things you have done didn't save you, but God was kind to you and saved you when you trusted in Jesus Christ. God saved you himself so that you would not be proud about being saved. 10 God has saved us all. He decided to make us and he said, “I will make my people so that they will do good, because they will have fellowship with Jesus Christ.”
About us having fellowship with Christ
11 Now think about this, you people who aren't Jews. You know what we Jewish people used to say to you. We said, “You aren't God's people because you are not circumcised. You don't belong with us Jews. We are God's people, because we are circumcised.” We were proud.
12 At that time you weren't with Christ, and you were different from us Jews, the ones God had chosen. You didn't know the promises God gave us his people. He didn't make those promises to you but to us Jewish people. At that time you didn't know God. So you didn't believe in him, and you didn't think about being with God tomorrow or next month.
13 But now you have fellowship with Jesus Christ. You used to be far away from God, but now God has brought you close to himself, because Christ poured out his blood and died for you.
14 Christ is the one who has stopped the fighting between us Jewish people and you who aren't Jews. When he died he stopped us all from fighting, so that we could have fellowship together. He was the one who did all that, and no one else. Because of that we have fellowship together today.
15-16 Long, long ago God told Moses his laws and Moses told them to his people. And those laws made us different from you. But Christ died on the cross for us and made peace between us and made us all one group. He brought us all together to bring us all back to God. So today those laws are finished, they don't make us different any more and we are all the same. It doesn't matter that we are Jews and you are not Jews, we are all one group now.
17 When Christ came into the world, he spoke to you who were far away from God and to us who were near him. He said, “Don't keep on fighting each other, but come to me so that I can give you peace.” 18 God's Spirit helps us all today to go to our Father, because Christ died for us all. 19 So now you who are not Jews are no longer different from us but we are all the same. We are all God's people, like brothers and sisters.
20-21 All of us God's people are like one big building. We are like God's building. But his real building is holy, and we worship God there. That building stands on firm rock. We apostles whom God chose first and also his prophets are like that rock. But Jesus Christ is like the special stone, the most important stone in God's building. He is the one who has brought all of us different people together, so that we can all be in one group today. It is just as though we people are joined together into one holy building. 22 God is bringing us together today so that we can have fellowship with Jesus Christ. So now we Jewish people and you who are not Jews are slowly coming closer together. We are like God's real building, and God's Spirit lives there all the time.