Sunday's second reading

Most priests will be talking about the Gospel and the Bread of Life discourse. So I thought I would give little space to the second reading. Ephesians is very beautiful and you should all read it.

Here is Sunday's excerpt.
Eph 4:17, 20-24

Brothers and sisters:
I declare and testify in the Lord
that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their minds;
that is not how you learned Christ,
assuming that you have heard of him and were taught in him,
as truth is in Jesus,
that you should put away the old self of your former way of life,
corrupted through deceitful desires,
and be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
and put on the new self,
created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.

You will notice that the lectionary omits versus 18 & 19.
Here they are:
darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess.

You may want to read it through in your own bible. I find it interesting that the editors of the lectionary chose to omit the passage that speaks of licentiousness and impurity. These are messages that we need to hear.