The mystery of covenant care

22Wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord,

23For the husband is the head of the wife, as the Messiah also is the head of the church, himself the Savior of the body.

24But as the church submits to Messiah, so also wives to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Messiah also loved the church and gave himself up for her,

26so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

27so that he himself might present the church to himself in splendor, not having spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but so that she might be holy and blameless.

28In the same way, husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself,

29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Messiah also does the church,

30because we are members of his body.

31For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

32This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Messiah and the church.

33Nevertheless, you also—each one individually—must love his own wife as himself, and the wife must fear her husband.