Ephesians 2:11

Plain English Version

Think about what you were at first. You were not Jews, so you didn’t belong to the special mob called Israel. And at that time you were not friends with Jesus Christ. You didn’t know that God promised to send him to save us. And before, when God promised to look after the Israel mob if they agreed to keep his law, he didn’t promise that to you. You didn’t know anything about those things. You were living without God, and there was nothing good for you in this world. You didn’t know anything about the young man operation that God told the Jewish people to do on all their boys. That’s the reason why the Jewish people rubbish you. But don’t worry about that. They are only talking about the operation that people do to their bodies. They are not talking about the job that God does inside us.

Cross References

Matthew 20:7

They said, ‘Because nobody gave us a job.’ The boss said to them, ‘All right, I’ll give each of you a job. Go and work in my garden.’

1 Corinthians 12:2

Remember this. Before you knew God, you listened to other people that didn’t know God, and you did what they did. You used to respect those statues that you thought were gods, but you know, they are just dumb statues, they can’t say anything.

1 Corinthians 6:11

And I know that some of you used to be bad people like that before. You did that sort of bad thing, but now you believe in Jesus Christ and let him be your boss. And God’s spirit came into you and washed you inside, and he made you God’s own special people, so that God says you are all right now.

Galatians 2:15

You see, Peter and me, we are Jews, and our Jewish people taught us God’s law. We Jews are not like you people that are not Jews. Nobody taught you mob God’s law.

Galatians 6:12

Some Jewish Christians are trying to force you to have that young man operation. They want the other Jews to think that you follow the Jewish law. You see, those other Jews will make trouble for anyone that believes that Jesus died on the cross to save them, and the Jewish Christians don’t want to get that trouble.

Ephesians 2:2

You didn’t do what God wants, but instead, you always did bad things, just like the other people in this world do. You used to do the things the devil wants. He is the boss over those strong bad spirits that are in the air. That devil is working now inside everyone that will not do what God wants.

Ephesians 5:8

You see, you used to be like that before. You didn’t know what was right, like you were living in the dark. But then you came to our leader, Jesus, and now you are in the light. So live like people that belong to the light.

Colossians 1:21

And I’m talking about you too. At first you were not God’s friends. You were his enemies. You always thought in a bad way, and then you did bad things.

Colossians 2:11

You know that the Jewish people do a young man operation on their baby boys. Well, when you joined on to Jesus, God did something like that to you. He didn’t cut away a part of your body, but it was like he did an operation on your spirit. He cut away a bad part from your spirit. That was the bad part that made you want to do bad things.

Colossians 2:13

You did bad things before. Your spirits still had that bad part that made you go wrong. It is like your spirits were dead. I will use picture talk to show you what I mean. Whenever you did bad things, it is like somebody wrote it down on paper so they could blame you later. But God let them blame Jesus instead of you, and then God chucked that paper away. It is like he nailed that paper to the cross when he let people nail Jesus there. And then God made your spirits alive again, just like he made Jesus alive again. Now he doesn’t blame you for the bad things you did.

Colossians 3:11

You are a new person now. It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or not, or if they did a young man operation on you or not. It doesn’t matter if you are from another country, or even if you are from a wild tribe. It doesn’t matter if you are a prisoner, or a free person. This is what matters, Jesus Christ lives inside all of his people. He is really great.

1 Samuel 17:26

David said to the men that stood near him, “That man gives us shame. He doesn’t know God. Somebody has to shut him up. What will Saul give if somebody kills him? We can’t let him make fun of the true God and his army, no way.”

1 Samuel 17:36

I’ve killed lions and bears dead. That cheeky man is shaming God’s army, so I will kill him the same way. God is the only powerful one.