Parents and children should behave well and wisely in the Lord
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📚✭Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 📚✭“Honour your father and mother”. This is the first commandment with a promise: 3 📚“That it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth”.4 📚✭And you fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Masters and servants should do likewise
5 📚Slaves✭, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ, 6 📚✭not with service because he is watching or as pleasers of men, but as slaves of Christ✭, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 📚serving with good will, as to the Lord and not to men, 8 📚knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive a reward✭ for it from the Lord, whether he is slave or free.
9 📚✭And you masters, act in the same way toward them, leaving off threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven, and there is no favoritism✭ with him.
Believers must learn to fight the spiritual battle in which they are engaged
10 📚Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord✭ and in the power of his might. 11 📚Put on✭ the whole armour✭ of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles✭ of the devil. 12 📚✭For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against powers, against the princes of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 📚So take for yourselves the whole armour of God that you may be able to resist them in the evil day✭ and, having done everything, to stand. 14 📚Stand✭, therefore✭, having your waist girded with truth✭, and having on the breastplate of righteousness✭, 15 📚and your feet fitted with the preparation of the gospel of peace✭. 16 📚Above all, take the shield of faith✭, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 17 📚And take the helmet of salvation✭, and the sword of the Spirit✭, which is the word of God,
They should be constant in prayer
18 📚✭praying always in the Spirit with all kinds of prayers and requests, and being alert for this with all perseverance and requests for all saints✭.
19 📚And pray for me✭ that it may be given to me to speak, that I may open my mouth boldly✭ to make known the mystery of the gospel✭, 20 📚for which I am an ambassador in chains✭, that in doing so I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Closing remarks
21 📚Tychicus✭, a dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you may know my situation and what I am doing. 22 📚I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you might know our state, and that he might encourage your hearts.