# Ephesians 6.1 **Book:** [Ephesians](/codex/ephesians/) · ASV ## Immediate context (±2 verses) **ASV** ([ASV](/codex/asv/)) > **1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.** > > 2. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), 3. that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. (Ephesians 6:1-3, ASV) **WEB** ([WEB](/codex/web/)) > **1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.** > > 2. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise: 3. “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” (Ephesians 6:1-3, WEB) **KJV** ([KJV](/codex/kjv/)) > **1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.** > > 2. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3. That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. (Ephesians 6:1-3, KJV) **YLT** ([YLT](/codex/ylt/)) > **1. The children! obey your parents in the Lord, for this is righteous;** > > 2. honour thy father and mother, 3. which is the first command with a promise, 'That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live a long time upon the land.' (Ephesians 6:1-3, YLT) ## Setting - **Speaker:** Paul (Ephesians is Pauline; some modern scholars dispute, but Pauline-authorship is the historic and majority-evangelical reading) - **Audience:** the Ephesian believers (and likely a circular-letter audience across Asia Minor) - **Location:** composed during Paul's Roman imprisonment, c. AD 60-62 - **Time period:** mid-first-century; one of the four "prison epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon) ## Theological reading Ephesians 6:1 opens the children-section of the Pauline household-code (Eph 5:21-6:9), the most-developed of the NT household-code passages. The verse must be read in the structural context of Eph 5:21's framing: *"subjecting yourselves [*hypotassomenoi*] one to another in the fear of Christ"*, the *mutual-submission-out-of-reverence-for-Christ* is the overarching principle under which every specific instruction operates. The verbal density of Eph 5:21-6:9: *hypotassomenoi* (5:21, mutual submission) → *hypotassesthō* (5:24, wives) → *hypakouete* (6:1, children) → *hypakouete* (6:5, servants). The household-code deploys both *hypotassō* (positional ordering) and *hypakouō* (active obedience). The shift from *hypotassō* to *hypakouō* at 6:1 is significant: children's relation to parents is framed as *active-obedience* rather than merely *positional-submission*, reflecting both the developmental-formation context (children are *being-formed* through their obedience) and the parallel with the slave-master pair at 6:5 (which also takes *hypakouō*). The qualifying clauses do critical work: *"in the Lord"* (*en Kyriō*) grounds the obedience Christologically, children obey parents *because* they obey Christ; the parental authority is *under* Christ's authority, not autonomous. *"For this is right"* (*touto gar estin dikaion*) anchors the command in the moral-natural-order; the fifth commandment (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16) is cited explicitly in v. 2 as *"the first commandment with promise."* The instruction is *not* an arbitrary Pauline command but the canonical-creational moral pattern. The reciprocal qualifier at v. 4, *"fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord"*, is essential to the proper-relational-ethic reading. The child's obedience is *not* license for parental abuse; the parent's authority is *not* unconditional. The household-code commands flow from the mutual-submission framing of 5:21 in both directions. Patristic and Reformed engagement of the passage emphasizes (a) the fifth commandment as the bridge between the first table (duties to God) and the second table (duties to neighbor); (b) parental authority as *derivative* from God's authority, with the *en Kyriō* limiting principle ruling out obedience to unrighteous parental commands; (c) the formation-of-virtue logic, the child's *hypakouō* of parents-under-God forms the disposition toward *hypakouō* of Christ. ## Key words - [G5219 - hypakouo](/codex/g5219-hypakouo/), the verbal cognate *hypakouō* (G5219), here in the imperative *hypakouete* ("obey!"). The same verb governs the slave-master pair at Eph 6:5; the parallel Colossian construction at Col 3:20, 22. ## See also - [G5218 - hypakoe](/codex/g5218-hypakoe/), the noun *hypakoē* - [G5219 - hypakouo](/codex/g5219-hypakouo/), the verbal cognate - Ephesians 5:21, the framing mutual-submission verse - Ephesians 6:4, the reciprocal qualifier (fathers' duty) - [Ephesians 6.9](/codex/ephesians-6-9/), the parallel reciprocal-qualifier for masters - Colossians 3:20-21, the parallel Colossian instruction ## Quoted in **Lexicon:** - [G5219 - hypakouo](/codex/g5219-hypakouo/) ## Why these four translations ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the **most literal English translations available** (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the **public domain in the United States**, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance. The four: - **[ASV](/codex/asv/)** (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition. - **[WEB](/codex/web/)** (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English. - **[KJV](/codex/kjv/)** (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base. - **[YLT](/codex/ylt/)** (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff. See [Bibles](/codex/bibles/) for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.