Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.
Parallel translations
- WEB Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.
- KJV Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
- BSB Be imitators of God, therefore, as beloved children,
- NKJV Thereforebe imitators of God as dear children.
- NASB Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
As beloved children, believers are to imitate their heavenly Father. Family likeness to God is the calling of his children.
Overview
This verse caps the appeal to forgive (4:32) and opens a new section. Because believers are God's dearly loved children, they are to imitate his character, especially his forgiving love. Children naturally resemble their father; so those born of God are to reflect his holy, loving nature.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- 1 Jn 4:11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.
- 1 Pet 1:15–16but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior;
- Eph 4:32And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.
- Matt 5:48Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
- Luke 6:35–36But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.
- Col 3:12Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;
- Lev 11:45For I am Yahweh who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
- 1 Jn 3:1–2See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.
- John 1:12But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name:
- Matt 5:45that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.
- Jer 31:20Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a darling child? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him,” says Yahweh.
- Hos 1:10Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured or counted; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Every spiritual blessing is 'in Christ,' the head over all things for the church, in whom Jew and Gentile are made one new man by his blood.
How Ephesians 5:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.