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New Testament Reading - Brought near in Christ

¹³But now you belong to Christ Jesus, and though you once were far away from God, now you have been brought very near to him because of what Jesus Christ has done for you with his blood.

¹⁴For Christ himself is our way of peace. He has made peace between us Jews and you Gentiles by making us all one family,[a] breaking down the wall of contempt* that used to separate us. ¹⁵By his death he ended the angry resentment between us, caused by the Jewish laws that favored the Jews and excluded the Gentiles, for he died to annul that whole system of Jewish laws. Then he took the two groups that had been opposed to each other and made them parts of himself; thus he fused us together to become one new person, and at last there was peace. ¹⁶As parts of the same body, our anger against each other has disappeared, for both of us have been reconciled to God. And so the feud ended at last at the cross. ¹⁷And he has brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were very far away from him, and to us Jews who were near. ¹⁸Now all of us, whether Jews or Gentiles, may come to God the Father with the Holy Spirit’s help because of what Christ has done for us.

¹⁹Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian.

²⁰What a foundation you stand on now: the apostles and the prophets; and the cornerstone of the building is Jesus Christ himself! ²¹We who believe are carefully joined together with Christ as parts of a beautiful, constantly growing temple for God. ²²And you also are joined with him and with each other by the Spirit and are part of this dwelling place of God.