¹ Paul, by the will of God an apostle of Christ Jesus, to God's holy people, faithful in Christ Jesus.

² Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

³ Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.

⁴ Thus he chose us in Christ before the world was made to be holy and faultless before him in love,

⁵ marking us out for himself beforehand, to be adopted sons, through Jesus Christ. Such was his purpose and good pleasure,

⁶ to the praise of the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved,

⁷ in whom, through his blood, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins. Such is the richness of the grace

⁸ which he has showered on us in all wisdom and insight.

⁹ He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in Christ,

¹⁰ for him to act upon when the times had run their course: that he would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth.

¹¹ And it is in him that we have received our heritage, marked out beforehand as we were, under the plan of the One who guides all things as he decides by his own will,

¹² chosen to be, for the praise of his glory, the people who would put their hopes in Christ before he came.

¹³ Now you too, in him, have heard the message of the truth and the gospel of your salvation, and having put your trust in it you have been stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit of the Promise,

¹⁴ who is the pledge of our inheritance, for the freedom of the people whom God has taken for his own, for the praise of his glory.

¹⁵ That is why I, having once heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and your love for all God's holy people,

¹⁶ have never failed to thank God for you and to remember you in my prayers.

¹⁷ May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.

¹⁸ May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, how rich is the glory of the heritage he offers among his holy people,

¹⁹ and how extraordinarily great is the power that he has exercised for us believers; this accords with the strength of his power

²⁰ at work in Christ, the power which he exercised in raising him from the dead and enthroning him at his right hand, in heaven,

²¹ far above every principality, ruling force, power or sovereignty, or any other name that can be named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.

²² He has put all things under his feet, and made him, as he is above all things, the head of the Church;

²³ which is his Body, the fullness of him who is filled, all in all.

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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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