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.

God’s complete armor

¹⁰ What else is there to say? Just this: be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his power. ¹¹ Put on God’s complete armor. Then you’ll be able to stand firm against the devil’s trickery. ¹² The warfare we’re engaged in, you see, isn’t against flesh and blood. It’s against the leaders, against the authorities, against the powers that rule the world in this dark age, against the wicked spiritual elements in the heavenly places.

¹³ For this reason, you must take up God’s complete armor. Then, when wickedness grabs its moment, you’ll be able to withstand, to do what needs to be done, and still to be on your feet when it’s all over. ¹⁴ So stand firm! Put the belt of truth round your waist; put on justice as your breastplate; ¹⁵ for shoes on your feet, ready for battle, take the good news of peace. ¹⁶ With it all, take the shield of faith; if you’ve got that, you’ll be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is God’s word.

Prayer and peace

¹⁸ Pray on every occasion in the spirit, with every type of prayer and intercession. You’ll need to keep awake and alert for this, with all perseverance and intercession for all God’s holy ones— ¹⁹ and also for me! Please pray that God will give me his words to speak when I open my mouth, so that I can make known, loud and clear, the secret truth of the gospel. ²⁰ That, after all, is why I’m a chained-up ambassador! Pray that I may announce it boldly; that’s what I’m duty-bound to do.

²¹ It’s important that you should know how things are with me, and what I’m up to; so our dear brother Tychicus will tell you about it. He is a loyal servant in the Lord. ²² I’ve sent him to you with this in mind, so that you may know how things are with us, and so that he may encourage your hearts.

²³ Peace be to the whole family, and love with faith, from God the father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. ²⁴ Grace be with all who love our Lord, Messiah Jesus, with a love that never dies!