² in which you once lived following the age of this world,^[a] following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient.^{(A) 3} All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh, following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.^(B)

¹⁷ So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds;^{(A) 18} darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart,^{(B) 19} they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess.^(C)

⁷ By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way.

³ For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful ourselves and hating one another.^(A)