Ephesians 1:4

Plain English Version

A long time ago, before God made the world, he picked us to be his people, and he joined us to Jesus Christ, so that now God can say we are good, like we never did anything wrong. He loved us,

Cross References

Matthew 25:34

Then I will say to the people on my right-hand side, ‘Come on, you mob. My father is happy with you, so you can be in his family. A long time ago, at the time when he made the world, he made a good place for you. It is ready for you now.

John 10:16

And not all of my people are from the same mob. They are not all Jewish people. I have other people too, and I have to bring them all together, like one mob of sheep. They will hear my voice, and they will come to me. Yes, I will bring all my people together into one mob, and I will look after them all, like a good shepherd looks after his sheep.

John 15:16

You didn’t pick me, but I picked you. And I am sending you out to do my work. I want you to be like branches that grow the sort of fruit that stays good for ever. Then you can ask God for anything that I say is good, and he will give it to you.

John 17:24

Father, you gave me these people, and I want them to be with me. I want them to see that you gave me the same great power that you have. You loved me and gave me that power before we made the world.

Acts 13:48

Those people that were not Jews heard those words, and they were very happy. They said, “Thank you God for this message. It is really good.” And a lot of people there believed in Jesus. You see, a long time before that, God picked those people to live with him for ever.

Acts 18:10

I am with you, and nobody will attack you. Nobody will hurt you. You see, I’ve got a lot of people in this city.”

Romans 8:33

God himself is the one that says, “You are good,” so nobody can blame us and tell God, “They are no good.”

1 Corinthians 1:8

God will keep you believing properly in our leader Jesus Christ, and you will stay strong for him until the day when he will come back from heaven. At that time, nobody will be able to blame you or say that you did anything wrong.

Galatians 5:13

You see, my Christian friends, God picked you to be people that are free from the Jewish law. But you have to be free in the right way. You can’t just do anything you like, anything that makes you feel good. Instead of that, you have to love each other and do things to help each other.

Galatians 5:22

But if God’s spirit controls people, he gets them to do good things. You know that a good fruit tree always gets good fruit on it. Well, like that, a person with God’s spirit does good things. If you let God’s spirit lead you, he will get you to love God and to love other people. And you will be happy. And you will feel good and quiet inside yourself so that you will not fight with other people. God’s spirit inside you will help you be good to people and not get angry, even if they give you trouble. And he will get you to be friendly to other people, and he will get you to do good things. He will make you the sort of person that other people can trust.

Galatians 5:6

You see, if people belong to Jesus Christ, it doesn’t matter if they have a young man operation or not. The only thing that matters is that they trust Jesus, and if they do that, they will love God, and they will love other people.

Ephesians 2:10

God is the one that made us what we are, and he wants us to do good things. He already has those good things ready for us to do. He turned us into new people, and he joined us to Jesus Christ, so now we can do those good things.

Ephesians 3:17

I pray that you will trust Jesus Christ properly, so that he will live inside you. I pray that you will always love God properly, and that you will always love other people too, so that you will always keep standing strong for him, like the roots of a tree always keep it standing up strong.

Ephesians 4:2

Don’t think that you are more important than other people. You have to be good to other people, you have to listen to them and try to understand them. Don’t get angry with each other, but you have to love each other all the time.

Ephesians 5:2

Always love other people, just like Jesus Christ loves us. He loved us so much that he took our payback, and he died instead of us. You know how people used to kill animals and burn them, to give them to God, for the good smell to make him happy. Well, just like those animals, Jesus died. When Jesus died, he gave himself to God. Jesus did that because he loved you. So you have to love other people too.

Ephesians 5:27

So now we can be properly good, and he can bring us to himself, with nothing wrong with us at all.

Philippians 2:15

Then you will be properly good, so that nobody can blame you for anything. You are God’s kids living among really bad people that always go wrong. So you have to live in a way that is properly good. Then everyone will see that you are properly good. You will be like bright stars in a dark sky.

Colossians 1:22

But God sent Jesus Christ to live as a man, in a human body, and then he let people kill Jesus’s body. When Jesus died, he took the payback for the bad things you did, so you can be friends with God. It’s like he washed you of those bad things, so you are properly good and clean inside. So at the time when God will judge everyone, he will see that you are clean and he will not blame you, he will say that you are not guilty.

Colossians 2:2

I’m working like this to help you be strong, so that all of you will be joined together by loving each other. You see, I want you to know and properly understand God’s plan to use Jesus Christ to save people. Then you will be really sure about it, and that will make you really happy.

Colossians 3:12

You see, God loves you. He picked you to be his own special people. So you have to live a new way for him. You have to be good to other people. You have to feel sorry for people that have trouble and try to help them. Don’t think that you are more important than other people. You have to be easy on other people, and don’t get angry with them, even if they give you trouble.

1 Thessalonians 3:12

And we want Jesus to get you to love each other and to love other people, even more than you do now. We want you to love people just as much as we love you.

1 Thessalonians 4:7

God picked us to be his people, but he didn’t pick us to be people that do bad and dirty things, like sleeping with somebody else’s wife or husband. He picked us to be people that keep away from everything that is bad.

2 Timothy 1:9

It is God that saved us, and he picked us to be his own specially good people. We didn’t do anything to get him to like us, but he was good to us anyway. He sent Jesus Christ to come and save us. God planned all that a long time ago, even before time started,

2 Timothy 2:10

So I reckon it’s all right for me to stay here in jail so that other people will hear that message and believe in Jesus. They are the people that God picked out. He will save them and make them great, and they will live happy with him for ever.

2 Timothy 2:19

But God gave us the true word that can’t ever change. It is like a solid slab of concrete that builders put a house on. And it is like they wrote some words in that concrete. It is like they wrote this, “God knows those people that belong to him,” And like they also wrote, “If anyone says that they belong to God, they have to stop doing bad things.” So God’s people have to live that way.

James 2:5

Listen to me, my good Christian friends. God picks out poor people, and he helps them to trust him properly. He promises to give them a good place in his family. He promises that to everybody that loves him. In the end those poor people will be really rich.

1 Peter 1:2

A long time ago, God, our father, knew you, and he picked you to be in his family. His spirit picked you out from other people to make you his special people. You listened to Jesus’s words, and you did whatever he said. Jesus died and his blood came out, and it is like God put that blood of Jesus on you to make you clean. I’m asking God to be properly good to you, and to make you feel really happy and quiet inside yourselves.

1 Peter 1:20

A long time ago, before God made the world, he picked Jesus to set you free. Then, later, Jesus came into the world. And now you know about him. You know that he died for you, and so you believe in God too. After Jesus died, God made him alive again, and God made him very great and gave him a lot of power. Now you can trust God and wait for everything he promised you.

1 Peter 2:9

But you are the people God picked out for himself. Together you work for him, like the men that looked after his ceremonies. You are his own family. God called you away from doing bad things, so you can do good things. It is like you used to live in the dark so that nobody could see you do bad things there, but now he called you away from that to live in his good light. So let’s tell everyone that God is really great and really good.

2 Peter 3:14

So now, my friends, while you are waiting for that to happen, try hard to always do good things, so that God will not blame you for doing wrong things. And don’t get angry with anyone and don’t fight, then when God looks at you, he will not see any trouble between you and anyone else.