¹ It is because of this that I, Paul, a prisoner of the Lord Jesus on behalf of you gentiles. . .

² You have surely heard the way in which God entrusted me with the grace he gave me for your sake;

³ he made known to me by a revelation the mystery I have just described briefly-

⁴ a reading of it will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ.

⁵ This mystery, as it is now revealed in the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, was unknown to humanity in previous generations:

⁶ that the gentiles now have the same inheritance and form the same Body and enjoy the same promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

⁷ I have been made the servant of that gospel by a gift of grace from God who gave it to me by the workings of his power.

⁸ I, who am less than the least of all God's holy people, have been entrusted with this special grace, of proclaiming to the gentiles the unfathomable treasure of Christ

⁹ and of throwing light on the inner workings of the mystery kept hidden through all the ages in God, the Creator of everything.

¹⁰ The purpose of this was, that now, through the Church, the principalities and ruling forces should learn how many-sided God's wisdom is,

¹¹ according to the plan which he had formed from all eternity in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹² In him we are bold enough to approach God in complete confidence, through our faith in him;

¹³ so, I beg you, do not let the hardships I go through on your account make you waver; they are your glory.

¹⁴ This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father,

¹⁵ from whom every fatherhood, in heaven or on earth, takes its name.

¹⁶ In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self,

¹⁷ so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love,

¹⁸ with all God's holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth;

¹⁹ so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God.

²⁰ Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine;

²¹ glory be to him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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