Semantic Analysis: Ephesians 1–6 (English → Persian)

Methodology and Baseline Compliance

This analysis extends the baseline Romans Language Package (translation_memory.json, bible_term_registry.json, doctrine_risk_registry.json) to the Ephesians curriculum. Any term already recorded in the Romans translation memory is reused exactly as recorded there (marked “[REUSE]” below) — no alternative renderings are proposed for these, consistent with the Hard Rule that established renderings must not be re-opened. Terms not present in the baseline are analyzed fresh and given a proposed Persian rendering, risk tier, and doctrinal rationale, following the same methodology and risk framework as the baseline (Critical/High/Medium/Low, per doctrine_risk_registry.json’s risk definitions).

Ephesians shares Paul’s authorship, register, and much core vocabulary with Romans, so a large fraction of load-bearing terms are direct reuses. Ephesians’ distinctive contribution is concentrated in: the mystery vocabulary (μυστήριον), the body/head ecclesiology, the new humanity Jew-Gentile language, the powers/armor spiritual-warfare vocabulary, and the household code vocabulary — none of which is present in the Romans baseline. These receive full new-term treatment.

Every field required by Step 1 is supplied for each load-bearing term: Original (Greek), Transliteration, Literal meaning, Semantic range, English variants (major EN Bible traditions), Contextual theological meaning (in Ephesians), and Destination-language rendering and risk.

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PART A — Core Passage: Ephesians 2:1–10 (Verse-by-Verse)

Ephesians 2:1

Greek: καὶ ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν

dead

• Original: νεκρός (nekros) | Transliteration: nekros | Literal meaning: without life, corpse-like
• Semantic range: physical death; spiritual/moral deadness; metaphorical inertness
• English variants: “dead” (KJV/ESV/NIV) — uniform across traditions
• Contextual theological meaning: total spiritual incapacity before God, not sickness or partial impairment — foundational to the doctrine of salvation by grace, since a corpse cannot contribute to its own resuscitation
• Persian rendering: مرده (morde) — Risk: High. Iranian folk-Islamic and Zoroastrian-influenced anthropology (fitrah/innate goodness, Chinvat deeds-weighing — see baseline “sin” entry) assumes residual moral capacity in the unregenerate person. “مرده” must be taught as total incapacity, not a weakened but still-functioning moral compass, or the entire grace-argument of 2:1-10 collapses into a synergistic reading.

trespasses

• Original: παράπτωμα (paraptōma) | Transliteration: paraptōma | Literal meaning: a false step, a fall beside the path
• Semantic range: a specific transgression/misstep, distinct from ἁμαρτία’s broader “sin” as a state/nature
• English variants: “trespasses” (KJV/ESV), “transgressions” (NIV, NASB)
• Contextual theological meaning: concrete acts of sin, paired with “sins” (state) to give a totalizing picture of the condition
• Persian rendering: تقصیرها / خطاها (taqsir-ha / khata-ha) — Risk: Medium. No major collision; ensure distinct nuance from گناه (see below) is not flattened — “acts” vs. “condition.”

sins

• Original: ἁμαρτία (hamartia) — [REUSE from baseline: گناه / gonah, High]. Contextual note: here paired with παράπτωμα to describe both the acts and the underlying condition of death.

Ephesians 2:2

walked

• Original: περιπατέω (peripateō) | Transliteration: peripateō | Literal meaning: to walk about, to conduct one’s life
• Semantic range: literal walking; figurative “way of life,” habitual conduct — a key recurring Ephesians verb (2:2, 2:10, 4:1, 4:17, 5:2, 5:8, 5:15)
• English variants: “walked” (KJV/ESV), “used to live” (NIV), “conducted yourselves” (NASB)
• Contextual theological meaning: the entire pre-conversion pattern of life, contrasted with the “walk” of 2:10 and 4:1 — a controlling metaphor for Ephesians’ ethics
• Persian rendering: رفتار کردن / راه رفتن (raftar kardan) — Risk: Medium. Must be rendered consistently as a habitual-life metaphor throughout the book (not translated differently in each occurrence), since it functions as a structural inclusio between the “old walk” (2:2) and the “new walk” (2:10, 4:1, 5:2).

course of this world / age

• Original: αἰών (aiōn) | Transliteration: aiōn | Literal meaning: an age, a long duration of time
• Semantic range: a temporal epoch; by extension, the dominant value-system/spirit of an epoch (“this present age”)
• English variants: “the course of this world” (KJV), “the ways of this world” (NIV), “the age of this world” (ESV footnote)
• Contextual theological meaning: the present God-opposing order under Satan’s influence, distinct from “the ages to come” (2:7)
• Persian rendering: این دنیا / این عصر (in donya / in asr) — Risk: Low-Medium.

prince of the power of the air

• Original: ὁ ἄρχων τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος (ho archōn tēs exousias tou aeros) | Transliteration: archōn tēs exousias | Literal meaning: the ruler of the authority/domain of the air
• Semantic range: designates Satan as a personal, ruling spiritual power with a domain
• English variants: uniform across major EN translations
• Contextual theological meaning: introduces Ephesians’ spiritual-warfare cosmology (developed fully in 6:12) — a real, personal, defeated-but-still-active enemy
• Persian rendering: فرمانروای قدرت هوا (farmanrava-ye qodrat-e hava) — Risk: High. See Chapter 6 analysis below for the full treatment of this doctrinal cluster (Zoroastrian dualism risk).

children of disobedience

• Original: υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθείας (huioi tēs apeitheias) | Transliteration: huioi tēs apeitheias | Literal meaning: sons of disobedience/unpersuadability
• Semantic range: a Hebraic idiom denoting characteristic identity (“sons of X” = “those characterized by X”)
• English variants: “children of disobedience” (KJV/ESV), “those who are disobedient” (NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: identifies unbelief itself as disobedience, not mere ignorance
• Persian rendering: فرزندان نافرمانی (farzandan-e nafarmani) — Risk: Medium. Note: باید از واژه “دعوت‌شده/فرزندخواندگی” (established adoption/calling terms) به‌وضوح متمایز شود تا خواننده میان این هویت منفی و فرزندخواندگی الهی (۲:۱۹، ۱:۵) خلط نکند.

Ephesians 2:3

conversation / conduct

• Original: ἀναστροφή (anastrophē) | Transliteration: anastrophē | Literal meaning: a turning-about; manner of life
• Semantic range: synonymous field with περιπατέω (2:2)
• English variants: “conversation” (KJV, archaic sense = “conduct”), “way of life” (ESV/NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: reinforces the totalizing description of pre-conversion life
• Persian rendering: رفتار/سیرت (raftar/sirat) — Risk: Low.

lusts of the flesh

• Original: ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός (epithymia tēs sarkos) | Transliteration: epithymia | Literal meaning: strong desire, craving
• Semantic range: neutral “desire” or (dominant NT usage) sinful, disordered desire
• English variants: “lusts” (KJV), “desires” (NIV/ESV)
• Contextual theological meaning: desire rooted in the fallen nature, not merely external temptation
• Persian rendering: هوس‌های نفس (havas-haye nafs) — Risk: High. See “flesh” below.

flesh

• Original: σάρξ (sarx) | Transliteration: sarx | Literal meaning: physical flesh/body tissue
• Semantic range: (1) literal body; (2) the fallen, sin-prone human nature in its ethical opposition to the Spirit — Ephesians’ dominant sense (2:3, 2:11, 5:29, 6:5,12)
• English variants: “flesh” (KJV/ESV), “sinful nature” (NIV 1984), “flesh” (NIV 2011 restored)
• Contextual theological meaning: the corrupted human nature inherited from Adam, source of sinful desire — not the physical body per se
• Persian rendering: نفس (nafs) — Risk: Critical. نفس is the central technical term of Sufi/Shia ascetic theology for the lower, carnal self that must be subdued through spiritual discipline (jihad al-nafs / “the greater jihad”). Rendering σάρξ as نفس offers a genuine cultural bridge (the concept of an inward, sin-prone self is already familiar) but risks importing the entire Sufi self-mortification program — progressive purification of the نفس through ascetic stages — in place of Paul’s argument that the flesh is decisively put to death only through union with Christ’s death (Eph. 2:1-6; cf. Rom. 6, already flagged Critical in the baseline for “sin”). Must be taught: the نفس is not purified by effort but crucified in Christ. For literal, non-ethical uses of σάρξ (e.g., “in the flesh,” physical descent, marriage “one flesh”) use جسم/تن (jesm/tan), Risk Medium, to avoid conflating literal and ethical senses.

mind

• Original: διάνοια (dianoia) | Transliteration: dianoia | Literal meaning: understanding, thought, disposition
• Persian rendering: ذهن/فکر (zehn/fekr) — Risk: Low.

by nature children of wrath

• Original: φύσει τέκνα ὀργῆς (physei tekna orgēs) | Transliteration: physei — “by nature”; τέκνα ὀργῆς — “children of wrath”
• Semantic range: φύσις = inborn condition, not acquired habit; ὀργή = settled divine judicial anger (not impulsive rage)
• English variants: “by nature children of wrath” (KJV/ESV), “by nature deserving of wrath” (NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: the doctrine of original/inherited guilt — humanity is born under condemnation, not born morally neutral
• Persian rendering: به طبیعت، فرزندان خشم (be tabiat, farzandan-e khashm) — Risk: Critical. This directly confronts the Islamic doctrine of fitrah (innate purity/sinlessness at birth, Qur’an 30:30) shared across Sunni and Shia Islam, and independently reinforced by Zoroastrianism’s ethical framework (see baseline “sin” entry on the Chinvat Bridge). Persian-speaking hearers bring a strong cultural default that guilt is earned through deeds, never inherited from birth. This clause must be taught explicitly against that default — it is Ephesians’ clearest statement of the Adamic-guilt doctrine underlying “Salvation by Grace through Faith.”

Ephesians 2:4

mercy

• Original: ἔλεος (eleos) | Transliteration: eleos | Literal meaning: compassion shown to the afflicted/guilty
• Semantic range: pity, compassion, clemency toward the undeserving
• English variants: “mercy” (uniform)
• Contextual theological meaning: God’s compassionate disposition that moves him to save those under wrath (2:3); paired with, but distinct from, grace (χάρις) — mercy relieves misery, grace bestows favor
• Persian rendering: رحمت (rahmat) — Risk: High. رحمت/رحیم is the single most invoked divine attribute in Persian Islamic piety (بسم‌الله الرحمن الرحیم opens nearly every Islamic prayer, document, and act). This is a genuine point of contact but risks the hearer assuming God’s mercy operates identically to the Islamic doctrine of divine clemency granted apart from any atoning mediator. Must be taught: God’s mercy in Eph. 2:4 is channeled specifically and exclusively through Christ’s death and resurrection (2:5-6), not a general divine leniency available through repentance and good deeds alone.

love

• Original: ἀγάπη (agapē) | Transliteration: agapē | Literal meaning: self-giving, willed love (distinct from ἔρως, φιλία)
• Semantic range: covenantal, sacrificial, unconditioned love; the term Paul uses for both God’s love for sinners and Christ’s love for the church (5:25)
• English variants: “love” (uniform)
• Contextual theological meaning: the motive behind the mercy of 2:4 and the ground of the entire salvation narrative
• Persian rendering: محبت (mohabbat) — Risk: Medium. محبت is also the primary vocabulary of Persian Sufi love-mysticism (Rumi, Hafez — divine love as ecstatic union). This can serve as a devotional bridge (per the baseline’s treatment of جلال/glory) but must be anchored to Christ’s specific, historical, self-giving act (2:4-7; 5:25), not a generalized mystical yearning for union with the Divine Beloved.

Ephesians 2:5–6

quickened together with Christ / raised up together / made to sit together

• Original: συζωοποιέω (syzōopoieō); συνεγείρω (synegeirō); συγκαθίζω (synkathizō)
• Transliteration: syzōopoieō, synegeirō, synkathizō | Literal meaning: “made-alive-together-with,” “raised-together-with,” “seated-together-with” — all three verbs carry the σύν- (“with/together”) prefix
• Semantic range: union with Christ’s own historical death, resurrection, and exaltation — believers do not merely imitate Christ’s resurrection but are incorporated into it
• English variants: “quickened…together with Christ…raised us up together, and made us sit together” (KJV); “made us alive together with Christ…raised us up with him and seated us with him” (ESV)
• Contextual theological meaning: union with Christ is the mechanism of salvation — not a future hope only, but a present, accomplished reality (“hath raised,” past tense) — grounding both “Salvation by Grace through Faith” and “Walking in Newness of Life”
• Persian rendering: با مسیح زنده شدن / با او برخاستن / با او نشستن (ba Masih zende shodan / ba u barkhastan / ba u neshastan) — Risk: High. The compound σύν- prefix (union/incorporation) has no single Persian morpheme equivalent and must be rendered periphrastically (“together with Christ”) in every occurrence or the believer’s organic union with Christ collapses into mere external imitation or reward-for-faith — subtly re-importing a works framework.
• Note on grace (χάρις) and saved (σῴζω) in 2:5b, 8: [REUSE from baseline: فیض / feyz, Critical; نجات / nejat, Critical].

heavenly places

• Original: ἐπουράνιος (epouranios) | Transliteration: epouranios | Literal meaning: “upon/above the heavens”
• Semantic range: the spiritual, heavenly realm — used seven times in Ephesians (1:3, 1:20, 2:6, 3:10, 6:12) as a key structural term for the location of Christ’s authority and the church’s present standing, and (in 6:12) the location of hostile spiritual powers
• English variants: “heavenly places” (KJV/ESV), “the heavenly realms” (NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: believers are already positioned, in Christ, in the same realm where spiritual authorities operate — grounding both the assurance and the spiritual-warfare doctrines
• Persian rendering: جایگاه‌های آسمانی (jaygah-haye asemani) — Risk: Medium. Must be kept terminologically consistent across all five occurrences so the doctrinal link between 2:6 (believer’s position) and 6:12 (the enemy’s position) remains visible to the Persian reader.

Ephesians 2:7

riches / kindness

• Original: πλοῦτος (ploutos); χρηστότης (chrēstotēs) | Transliteration: ploutos, chrēstotēs | Literal meaning: wealth/abundance; goodness/kindness
• Persian rendering: غنا/ثروت (ghena/servat) for πλοῦτος, Risk Low; مهربانی/نیکویی (mehrabani/nikui) for χρηστότης, Risk Low.
• Contextual theological meaning: God’s grace is displayed lavishly and perpetually (“the ages to come”) — underscores grace’s abundance, not mere sufficiency.

Ephesians 2:8–9

faith

• Original: πίστις (pistis) — [REUSE from baseline: ایمان / iman, High]. Contextual note: here explicitly the channel (διά, “through”) rather than the ground of salvation — grace is the ground, faith the means. This distinction must survive translation: “دیگر از طریق ایمان” (through faith), not “بر اساس ایمان” (on the basis of faith), to avoid faith itself becoming a meritorious work.

gift

• Original: δῶρον (dōron) | Transliteration: dōron | Literal meaning: a gift, present
• Semantic range: a freely given present, without reciprocal obligation — distinct from χάρισμα (a grace-gift with a functional purpose, used in 4:7-8)
• English variants: “gift” (uniform)
• Contextual theological meaning: salvation itself, in its totality (grace + faith), is God’s own gift — the antecedent of “that” (τοῦτο) in 2:8 is debated, but the theological point (salvation is not self-generated) is settled
• Persian rendering: عطا / هدیه (ata / hediye) — Risk: Medium. Must not be rendered with a term implying a reward for prior merit or ritual observance.

works

• Original: ἔργα (erga) | Transliteration: erga | Literal meaning: deeds, works, actions
• Semantic range: any human action, here specifically actions offered as the ground of acceptance before God
• English variants: “works” (uniform)
• Contextual theological meaning: the explicit negation of works as the ground of salvation — the fulcrum verse of the entire “Salvation by Grace through Faith” doctrine and the sharpest possible contrast with a deeds-based framework
• Persian rendering: اعمال (a’mal) — Risk: Critical. اعمال is the precise technical term of the Islamic mizan (scales) doctrine — the deeds recorded in one’s nāme-ye a’mal (“book of deeds”) and weighed at Qiyamah, shared identically across Sunni and Shia Islam and independently reinforced by Zoroastrianism’s Chinvat Bridge (see baseline “sin” and “universal_human_accountability” entries). Ephesians 2:9 states the precise inverse of the dominant Persian religious-cultural framework: salvation is not secured by weighed deeds. This is arguably the single highest-stakes clause in the entire curriculum for a Persian Muslim-background hearer and requires deliberate, explicit doctrinal framing at every occurrence — not merely accurate lexical translation.

boast

• Original: καυχάομαι (kauchaomai) | Transliteration: kauchaomai | Literal meaning: to boast, glory in, take pride in
• Persian rendering: فخر کردن / نازیدن (fakhr kardan) — Risk: Medium. The point is that a works-based system inevitably produces self-congratulation; grace excludes it entirely.

Ephesians 2:10

workmanship

• Original: ποίημα (poiēma) | Transliteration: poiēma | Literal meaning: a thing made, a work of craftsmanship (root of English “poem”)
• Semantic range: an artifact skillfully produced by a maker — used elsewhere in the NT only in Romans 1:20 of creation itself
• English variants: “workmanship” (KJV/ESV), “handiwork” (NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: believers are God’s own artistic product — the identical grace that saves (2:8) is what fashions the believer for good works (2:10), reversing the erga of 2:9 from ground to fruit
• Persian rendering: ساختهٴ دست خدا (sakhte-ye dast-e khoda) — Risk: Medium. Should be rendered so as to visibly echo، but not be confused with, اعمال (2:9) — this is what God makes, not what the believer does to be accepted.

created

• Original: κτίζω (ktizō) — new-creation sense; Persian: آفریدن (afaridan) — Risk: Low.

good works

• Original: ἔργα ἀγαθά (erga agatha) | Transliteration: erga agatha | Literal meaning: good deeds/works
• Semantic range: identical noun ἔργα as 2:9, now qualified positively and repositioned as fruit, not root, of salvation
• Contextual theological meaning: the resolution of the works-tension in 2:8-10: works are excluded as the ground (v.9) and reinstated as the necessary, prepared fruit (v.10) — the precise ordering that must be preserved
• Persian rendering: اعمال نیک / کارهای نیک (a’mal-e nik) — Risk: Critical. This phrase is strikingly close to the paired Qur’anic formula iman wa ‘amal-e saleh (“faith and righteous deeds,” e.g. Qur’an 2:25, 103:3) which functions in Islamic soteriology as a joint, co-equal condition for salvation. Ephesians 2:8-10 must be taught with the ordering made unmistakable in Persian: grace and faith alone secure salvation (v.8-9); good deeds follow as their necessary, divinely-prepared fruit (v.10), never as a co-condition alongside faith. A translator’s note flagging this exact sequencing is mandatory at every occurrence of this phrase across the curriculum.

before ordained (that we should walk in them)

• Original: προετοιμάζω (proetoimazō) | Transliteration: proetoimazō | Literal meaning: to prepare beforehand
• Semantic range: God’s advance preparation of the specific good works believers will do — an application of the “predestination” vocabulary of chapter 1 to ethics
• Persian rendering: از پیش آماده کرد (az pish amade kard) — Risk: Medium. Ties directly to the “predestined” (προορίζω) doctrine of 1:5,11 — see Chapter 1 below; use parallel, not identical, phrasing so as not to conflate the two distinct Greek verbs.

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PART B — Chapter-by-Chapter Study of the Whole Book

Chapter 1 (Ephesians 1:1–23)

• apostle (ἀπόστολος) — [REUSE: رسول, High]
• saints (ἅγιοι) — [REUSE: مقدسین, Medium/High]
• faithful (πιστός) — related to [REUSE faith root: ایمان]; “the faithful in Christ Jesus” (1:1) — Risk Low, adjectival use.
• grace / peace (χάρις, εἰρήνη) — [REUSE: فیض High; سلام Medium]

blessed / blessing

• Original: εὐλογητός (adj.) / εὐλογία (noun) | Transliteration: eulogētos / eulogia | Literal meaning: “well-spoken-of”; a spoken benefit bestowed
• Semantic range: God as the object of praise (“Blessed be…”) and the subject who bestows benefit (“who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing”)
• English variants: “Blessed be the God…who hath blessed us” (KJV); uniform sense across traditions
• Contextual theological meaning: introduces the doxological structure of 1:3-14 — grace as an outpoured, comprehensive divine benefit (“every spiritual blessing”)
• Persian rendering: متبارک (خدا) / برکت (motabarak / barakat) — Risk: Medium. برکت (barakat) is widely used in Persian Islamic piety for divine favor mediated through holy persons, places, and relics (e.g. the barakat of a shrine or an Imam’s tomb). Must be anchored here to the specific, Christ-mediated spiritual blessings enumerated in 1:4-14 (election, adoption, redemption, sealing), not a diffuse, mediated sacred power.

chose / election

• Original: ἐκλέγομαι (verb, 1:4) — cognate of ἐκλογή — [REUSE doctrine: برگزیدگی خدا, High]. Contextual note: 1:4’s “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world” is the fullest statement in the NT of the doctrine already flagged in the baseline’s “election” entry; here paired directly with προορίζω (below), intensifying the doctrinal weight for the “Election and Predestination in Christ” curriculum doctrine.

foundation of the world

• Original: πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου (pro katabolēs kosmou) | Literal meaning: “before the casting-down/founding of the world”
• Contextual theological meaning: places election in eternity, prior to and independent of any human deed — reinforces the grace-not-works argument of 2:8-9 at the level of eternal decree
• Persian rendering: پیش از آفرینش جهان (pish az afarinesh-e jahan) — Risk: Low, descriptive.

predestined / foreordained

• Original: προορίζω (proorizō, 1:5, 1:11) | Transliteration: proorizō | Literal meaning: to mark out/decide in advance
• Semantic range: God’s prior, sovereign determination of an outcome — used in Romans 8:29-30 (baseline covers this passage only under the broader “providence” doctrine, without a dedicated TM entry) and intensively in Ephesians 1
• English variants: “predestinated” (KJV), “predestined” (ESV/NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: the specific doctrinal center of “Election and Predestination in Christ” — God’s determination that believers be adopted as sons, made “before the foundation of the world,” “according to the good pleasure of his will”
• Persian rendering: از پیش تعیین کرد (az pish ta’yin kard) — Risk: Critical. The natural, dictionary Persian rendering “مقدر ساخت” (moqaddar sakht, from تقدیر/taqdir) must be avoided as the primary term: تقدیر is the load-bearing word for Islamic divine decree/fatalism (qadar), debated at length in both Sunni and Shia theology, and carries strong connotations of an impersonal, exhaustive, often fatalistic determination of every event (including evil) that Persian hearers will immediately import. This Language Package follows the same logic as the baseline’s avoidance of شریعت (for “law”) and its rendering of πρόνοια as تدبیر الهی (not تقدیر): προορίζω is rendered with the transparent compound از پیش تعیین کرد (“determined/appointed beforehand”) to keep the doctrine anchored to God’s personal, gracious, Christ-centered choice of individuals for adoption — not an impersonal cosmic decree covering all events indiscriminately. Every occurrence requires a translator’s note distinguishing this from taqdir/qadar fatalism.

good pleasure (of his will)

• Original: εὐδοκία (eudokia) | Transliteration: eudokia | Literal meaning: good will, favorable disposition
• Persian rendering: خشنودی/رضای او (khoshnudi/reza-ye u) — Risk: Low-Medium. Note: رضا (reza) is also the name of the eighth Shia Imam (Imam Reza, whose shrine in Mashhad is Iran’s most visited pilgrimage site) — a purely onomastic overlap with no doctrinal content collision, but translators should be aware the word will carry that association for many hearers; context (God’s own will/pleasure) sufficiently disambiguates.

redemption

• Original: ἀπολύτρωσις (apolytrōsis, 1:7, 1:14) | Transliteration: apolytrōsis | Literal meaning: a releasing/ransoming, from λύτρον (“ransom price”)
• Semantic range: deliverance secured specifically by payment of a price — distinct from the broader σωτηρία (“salvation”)
• English variants: “redemption” (uniform)
• Contextual theological meaning: salvation understood as a purchase, at the cost of Christ’s blood (1:7), from bondage to sin — grounds the “Salvation by Grace through Faith” doctrine in a transactional, costly metaphor
• Persian rendering: رهایی (به بهای فدیه) (rahai be baha-ye fadiye) — Risk: Critical. رهایی (rahai, “release/deliverance”) is the core gloss; the ransom-price component (فدیه, fadiye) must be retained in teaching but handled with extreme care, because Persian Shia piety already has a highly developed theology of a sacrificial, blood-price deliverance narrative centered on Imam Hussein’s martyrdom at Karbala — frequently described using the cognate vocabulary of fada/fedakari (“self-sacrifice for the community’s benefit”). This is the same collision the baseline documents for “salvation” and “intercession” (Critical), now extended to the specific ransom-price mechanism. Christ’s ransom must be taught as a unique, sufficient, once-for-all payment that actually satisfies divine justice — not analogous to, or reinforcing, the devotional pattern of benefiting from a martyr’s suffering through ritual mourning and pilgrimage.

forgiveness (of sins / trespasses)

• Original: ἄφεσις (aphesis, 1:7) | Transliteration: aphesis | Literal meaning: a sending away, release
• Persian rendering: آمرزش (amorzesh) — Risk: Medium. آمرزش is a native Persian word (not an Arabic loan), shared across Zoroastrian, Muslim, and Christian Persian usage — a genuine linguistic asset, structurally parallel to خدا (Khoda). Broadly compatible concept; ensure it is anchored to the “riches of his grace” (1:7) and the ransom of 1:7 rather than to general Islamic تعزیر/توبه (repentance-secured) forgiveness apart from a mediator’s atoning payment.

mystery

• Original: μυστήριον (mystērion, 1:9; also 3:3-9, 5:32, 6:19) | Transliteration: mystērion | Literal meaning: a secret thing, something requiring initiation to know
• Semantic range: in Hellenistic religion, esoteric knowledge disclosed only to initiates of a cult; in Paul, a truth once hidden in God’s plan and now publicly disclosed to all through the gospel — the semantic range is inverted from its pagan background
• English variants: “mystery” (uniform)
• Contextual theological meaning: the central organizing concept of Ephesians — God’s eternal plan, climaxing in the union of Jew and Gentile in one body (3:6) and, typologically, Christ and the church (5:32) — now fully revealed, not partially glimpsed; this is the doctrinal heart of the curriculum’s “The Mystery of Christ Revealed”
• Persian rendering: راز (raz) — Risk: Critical. راز is the dominant word for “secret/mystery” in Persian religious-devotional literature, and it carries an exceptionally heavy load in two distinct native traditions: (1) Sufi mystical poetry (Rumi, Hafez), where راز/سرّ denotes esoteric divine truth accessible only through a guided mystical path, disclosed progressively to spiritually advanced initiates (a direct echo of the pagan-mystery-cult sense Paul is rejecting); and (2) Shia esoteric theology, where the Imams are custodians of hidden (باطنی) religious knowledge not accessible to ordinary believers. Both native frameworks assume the “mystery” remains restricted to a spiritual elite. Paul’s usage is the theological opposite: the μυστήριον is now fully revealed and equally available to every believer, Jew or Gentile, through the plainly preached gospel (3:8-9), not through mystical ascent or clerical mediation. Every occurrence of راز in this curriculum requires explicit framing: this is a formerly-hidden truth now disclosed to all, not an ongoing esoteric secret for the initiated few.

dispensation / administration (of the mystery/grace)

• Original: οἰκονομία (oikonomia, 1:10, 3:2,9) | Transliteration: oikonomia | Literal meaning: household management, stewardship
• Semantic range: an ordered plan of administration; root of English “economy”
• Persian rendering: تدبیر (الهی) (tadbir-e elahi) — Risk: Low-Medium. Deliberately shares its root with the baseline’s رendering of πρόνοια/“providence” (تدبیر الهی); this overlap is acceptable and even helpful, since οἰκονομία in Ephesians is a specific application of God’s broader providential plan to the unfolding of the mystery in history.

gather together in one / sum up under one head

• Original: ἀνακεφαλαιόω (anakephalaioō, 1:10) | Transliteration: anakephalaioō | Literal meaning: to sum up, bring under one head (κεφαλή, “head”)
• Contextual theological meaning: God’s cosmic plan to unite all things — visibly including the church, cosmically including all creation — under Christ’s headship; the term shares its root with κεφαλή (see below, 1:22 and 5:23), linking the cosmic and ecclesial headship doctrines
• Persian rendering: زیر سرداری مسیح یکی کردن (zir-e sardari-ye Masih yeki kardan) — Risk: Medium. Must visibly echo سر (head) rendering below for doctrinal consistency.

inheritance

• Original: κληρονομία (klēronomia, 1:11,14,18) | Transliteration: klēronomia | Literal meaning: an inherited possession, allotted portion
• Persian rendering: میراث (miras) — Risk: Medium. Ties directly to the baseline’s Critical “adoption” (فرزندخواندگی) doctrine: Iranian civil/Islamic inheritance law (fiqh-based, with fixed shares for legal heirs) makes میراث an extremely concrete, legally-loaded word for Persian hearers. Must be taught that believers’ inheritance in Christ is not partial or contingent in the way Islamic inheritance shares are fixed fractions among many heirs, but full and undivided in union with Christ, the sole Heir (cf. adoption doctrine).

sealed / earnest (Holy Spirit as guarantee)

• Original: σφραγίζω (sphragizō, 1:13); ἀρραβών (arrabōn, 1:14) | Transliteration: sphragizō; arrabōn | Literal meaning: to stamp with a seal (mark of ownership/authenticity); a down-payment/pledge guaranteeing full payment to come
• Persian rendering: مهر شدن (mohr shodan) — Risk: Medium; ضمانت / بیعانه (zamanat/bey’ane) — Risk: Low-Medium.
• Contextual theological meaning: the Holy Spirit’s indwelling as both a legal mark of God’s ownership and a present, partial guarantee of the believer’s future full inheritance — supports “Assurance of Salvation” (baseline Critical doctrine, reinforced here) against the mizan/deeds-weighing uncertainty of popular Islamic piety.

power, working (of his mighty power), might, strength

• Original cluster: δύναμις (dynamis, “power/capability”); ἐνέργεια (energeia, “operative energy,” root of “energy”); κράτος (kratos, “dominion-strength”); ἰσχύς (ischys, “inherent might”) — all four occur together in 1:19, describing the resurrection-power at work in believers
• Persian rendering: قدرت (qodrat) / عملکرد (amalkard) / سلطه (soltat) / توانمندی (tavanmandi) — Risk: Medium. Persian lacks four natural synonyms mapping cleanly onto these four Greek terms; some collapsing is unavoidable, but the passage’s rhetorical point — the superabundance of resurrection power now available to ordinary believers ([REUSE resurrection doctrine: قیامت, Critical; power_of_god: قدرت خدا, Medium]) — must survive even if the four-way lexical distinction does not.

far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion

• Original: ἀρχή (archē), ἐξουσία (exousia), δύναμις (dynamis), κυριότης (kyriotēs) (1:21) | Literal meaning: rule/beginning; authority; power; lordship
• Contextual theological meaning: Christ’s exaltation over the entire hierarchy of spiritual powers (echoed and expanded in the spiritual-warfare vocabulary of 6:12) — foundational to “Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God”
• Persian rendering: فرمانروایی‌ها، قدرت‌ها، سلطه‌ها و ریاست‌ها (farmanravayiha, qodratha, soltatha, riasatha) — Risk: Critical. See full treatment under Chapter 6 below, where this vocabulary recurs with its greatest doctrinal weight.

head / body

• Original: κεφαλή (kephalē, “head,” 1:22); σῶμα (sōma, “body,” 1:23) | Transliteration: kephalē; sōma
• Semantic range: κεφαλή — literal head; figuratively, source/authority/preeminence; σῶμα — literal body; figuratively, an organic corporate unity
• English variants: uniform
• Contextual theological meaning: introduces Ephesians’ defining ecclesiology — the church as Christ’s body, with Christ himself as its head — the doctrinal foundation for “The Church as the Body of Christ,” resumed in 4:15-16 and 5:23-30
• Persian rendering: سر (sar) for κεφαλή; بدن (badan) for σῶμα — Risk: High for both. سر/headship carries direct, unavoidable resonance with the household-code use of the same word for the husband’s headship over the wife (5:23), and with existing Iranian patriarchal-legal family structures (Islamic qavamiyat, Qur’an 4:34). The ecclesial sense (Christ’s organic, life-giving, self-sacrificial headship over his body) must be taught with enough independent force that it is not simply read back as a generic ratification of unqualified male authority — see full household-code treatment under Chapter 5.

fullness

• Original: πλήρωμα (plērōma, 1:23; also 3:19, 4:13) | Transliteration: plērōma | Literal meaning: that which fills, completion, fullness
• Semantic range: the totality/completeness of something; in 1:23, the church as “the fullness of him that filleth all in all” — Christ’s own completeness expressed through and filling the church
• English variants: “fulness” (KJV), “fullness” (ESV/NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: a key structural term recurring at each major turn of the book (Christ’s fullness dwelling in the church, 1:23; the fullness of God, 3:19; the fullness of Christ as the church’s maturity goal, 4:13)
• Persian rendering: کمال (kamal) — Risk: Critical. کمال is the exact technical term of the major Persian Sufi doctrine of انسان کامل (al-insan al-kamil, “the Perfect/Complete Man” — articulated by Ibn ‘Arabi and enormously influential throughout Persian mystical literature, especially via Rumi’s Masnavi), describing a spiritually perfected sage who fully manifests the divine attributes through a mystical path of individual ascent. Rendering πλήρωμα as کمال risks the entire “fullness of Christ” doctrine being absorbed into this individual-attainment framework rather than understood as Christ’s own completeness corporately indwelling and expressed through the church as a whole, received by grace, not achieved by mystical progress. This term is retained (per the baseline’s established-vocabulary-with-flagging pattern used for فیض and جلال) because no adequate substitute exists in standard Persian Bible usage, but it requires the heaviest possible doctrinal qualification at every occurrence, and should never be paired with the noun انسان (“man/person”) in translation — see the treatment of τέλειος ἀνήρ under Chapter 4, where this exact collision must be actively avoided by choosing a different rendering.

Chapter 2 (Ephesians 2:11–22) — continuing after the core passage (2:1-10, treated above)

Gentiles / circumcision / uncircumcision

• Original: ἔθνη (ethnē) — [REUSE: غیریهودیان, Medium]; περιτομή (peritomē, “circumcision”); ἀκροβυστία (akrobystia, “uncircumcision,” lit. “foreskin”)
• Persian rendering for the new pair: ختنه / نامختون (khatne / na-makhtun) — Risk: Medium. Circumcision is a familiar Islamic cultural practice in Iran (khatne), but here it functions as the covenant identity marker separating Jew from Gentile, not as hygienic-religious custom; this distinct, badge-of-covenant-membership sense must be taught explicitly, since the practice’s cultural familiarity could otherwise flatten Paul’s argument.

commonwealth of Israel

• Original: πολιτεία τοῦ Ἰσραήλ (politeia tou Israēl, 2:12) | Transliteration: politeia | Literal meaning: citizenship, body politic, state
• Persian rendering: تابعیت/ملیت اسرائیل (tabe’iyat-e Esra’il) — Risk: High. Combines the baseline’s already-High “israel” entry (Iran’s officially propagandized anti-Israel political stance) with explicit citizenship/political vocabulary. Must be framed with deliberate pastoral care as the OT covenant people, not the modern nation-state, per the baseline’s existing “israel” and “unity_of_jews_and_gentiles” doctrine notes.

covenant(s) of promise

• Original: διαθῆκαι τῆς ἐπαγγελίας (2:12) — [REUSE: عهد, Medium]

blood of Christ

• Original: αἷμα (τοῦ Χριστοῦ) (haima, 2:13) | Transliteration: haima | Literal meaning: blood
• Semantic range: literal blood; by metonymy, sacrificial death and its atoning power
• Contextual theological meaning: the specific means by which the far-off Gentiles are brought near (2:13) and by which vertical (God-ward) and horizontal (Jew-Gentile) reconciliation are simultaneously accomplished (2:14-16)
• Persian rendering: خون مسیح (khun-e Masih) — Risk: Critical. Persian Shia devotional culture centers an entire annual liturgical calendar (Muharram, Ashura) on the shed blood of Imam Hussein at Karbala, commemorated with the widely-known slogan that “blood triumphed over the sword” (خون بر شمشیر پیروز شد) and mourning rituals believed to secure intercessory benefit for participants (already flagged Critical in the baseline under “salvation” and “intercession”). Christ’s blood in Ephesians 2:13 must be taught as categorically, not merely superlatively, distinct from this martyrdom-blood framework: it is a completed, once-for-all, judicially sufficient atonement accomplishing actual reconciliation (2:16), not a devotional resource activated through ritual mourning.

dividing wall / partition

• Original: τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ (to mesotoichon tou phragmou, 2:14) | Transliteration: mesotoichon; phragmos | Literal meaning: the middle-wall of the fence/partition — likely alluding to the temple’s actual dividing barrier separating the Court of the Gentiles from Jewish-only areas
• Contextual theological meaning: the central visual image for “Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity” — Christ has physically/spiritually demolished the barrier
• Persian rendering: دیوار جداکننده (divar-e jodakonande) — Risk: Medium. Vivid, low ambiguity; ensure the OT temple background (the literal barrier being alluded to) is supplied, since Persian readers will not have this architectural referent without explanation.

enmity

• Original: ἔχθρα (echthra, 2:14,16) | Persian: دشمنی (doshmani) — Risk: Low.

the law of commandments

• Original: ὁ νόμος τῶν ἐντολῶν (2:15) — [REUSE: ناموس, Critical]. Contextual note: here specifically the ceremonial-boundary aspects of the Law that historically separated Jew and Gentile; the same Critical caution applies as in the baseline (avoid شریعت given Iran’s shari’a-based legal system).

one new man / new humanity

• Original: εἷς καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (heis kainos anthrōpos, 2:15) | Transliteration: kainos anthrōpos | Literal meaning: one new man/person
• Semantic range: a corporate, not individual, new humanity — Jew and Gentile together constituted as a genuinely new entity in Christ, not merely a truce between two old ones
• Contextual theological meaning: the doctrinal climax of “Unity of Jews and Gentiles in One New Humanity” — distinct from the individual renewal language of 4:22-24 (below), though built from the identical Greek phrase
• Persian rendering: انسانیت تازه / یک انسان جدید (ensaniyat-e taze) — Risk: High. Must be clearly marked as corporate (the reconciled Jew-Gentile church as a single new humanity) to avoid readers assuming a generic “new me” self-improvement sense, especially given Iran’s large popular self-help/wellness literature market (cf. the baseline’s caution about آرامش for “peace”).

reconcile

• Original: ἀποκαταλλάσσω (apokatallassō, 2:16); καταλλαγή (katallagē) | Transliteration: apokatallassō | Literal meaning: to restore to favor, exchange hostility for peace
• Contextual theological meaning: both vertical (2:16, God-ward) and horizontal (Jew-Gentile) reconciliation are accomplished through the cross “in one body”
• Persian rendering: آشتی دادن (ashti dadan) — Risk: High. آشتی in ordinary Persian usage denotes a negotiated social truce between offended parties; must be taught as a unilateral, cross-secured, judicially grounded restoration, not a mutual political settlement (مصالحه) between equals.

cross

• Original: σταυρός (stauros, 2:16) | Transliteration: stauros | Literal meaning: an upright stake/cross used for execution
• Persian rendering: صلیب (salib) — Risk: Critical. Shares fully the Qur’an’s explicit crucifixion-denial (Qur’an 4:157, “they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him… it was made to appear so to them” — shubbiha lahum), identical to the baseline’s existing Critical treatment of “resurrection” and “messiah.” Every occurrence of صلیب as the means of reconciliation (2:16) or atonement (1:7, 5:2) must actively assert the historical reality of the crucifixion, not merely assume it as background.

access

• Original: προσαγωγή (prosagōgē, 2:18) | Transliteration: prosagōgē | Literal meaning: a bringing-near, an introduction (to a person of rank, e.g. royal audience)
• Contextual theological meaning: both Jew and Gentile now have direct, unmediated access to the Father “by one Spirit” — no distinct access-granting intermediary required
• Persian rendering: دسترسی / راه ورود (dastresi) — Risk: High. Directly engages the baseline’s Critical “intercession” (شفاعت) doctrine: popular Shia piety understands access to God as normally requiring the intercession of the Imams, particularly at their shrines. Ephesians 2:18 must be taught as asserting direct, Spirit-enabled access for every believer, Jew or Gentile, without a human intermediary — reinforcing, not merely coexisting with, the baseline’s existing intercession caution.

fellow citizens / household of God

• Original: συμπολῖται (sympolitai, 2:19); οἰκεῖοι τοῦ θεοῦ (oikeioi tou theou, 2:19) | Persian rendering: هم‌وطن (hamvatan) — Risk: Low-Medium; اهل خانهٴ خدا / خانوادهٴ خدا (ahl-e khane-ye khoda) — Risk: Medium, reinforcing the baseline’s Critical adoption doctrine (فرزندخواندگی) — full family membership, not the weaker sarparasti/custodianship default already flagged in the baseline.

foundation / chief cornerstone / building / holy temple / habitation of God

• Original: θεμέλιος (themelios, “foundation”); ἀκρογωνιαῖος (akrogōniaios, “chief cornerstone”); οἰκοδομή (oikodomē, “building,” cf. baseline “mutual_edification”); ναὸς ἅγιος (naos hagios, “holy temple”); κατοικητήριον (katoikētērion, “dwelling place”) (2:20-22)
• Contextual theological meaning: the church, built on the apostles/prophets with Christ as cornerstone, is now itself God’s temple — the locus of his presence has shifted from a physical building to the corporate church
• Persian rendering: پایه (paye, foundation) — Low; سنگ زاویه/سنگ اصلی (sang-e zaviye) — Low-Medium; بنا (bana, building) — Low; معبد مقدس (ma’bad-e moqaddas, holy temple) — Risk: High; مسکن خدا (maskan-e khoda, dwelling place) — Low.
• Note on معبد: this word is the standard Persian term for any religious temple/shrine, including Zoroastrian fire-temples and, most saliently, Shia emamzade and haram shrine complexes (e.g. the Imam Reza shrine, Iran’s most visited pilgrimage site) toward which believers direct devotion and seek barakat/intercession. Using معبد for the church-as-temple in Ephesians 2:21 is doctrinally correct (Paul does intend a temple-replacement claim) but must be actively taught as a deliberate claim — the church itself, not a shrine or holy building, is now the place of God’s dwelling by the Spirit — rather than allowed to passively absorb shrine-veneration assumptions.

Chapter 3 (Ephesians 3:1–21)

• mystery, dispensation — reuse Chapter 1 treatment above (راز, Critical; تدبیر, Low-Medium), now explicitly named “the mystery of Christ” (3:4) and expanded: Gentiles are “fellow heirs” (συγκληρονόμος, sygklēronomos), of “the same body” (σύσσωμος, syssōmos), and “partakers” (συμμέτοχος, symmetochos) of the promise (3:6) — Persian: هم‌میراث / هم‌بدن / شریک — Risk: Medium, all reinforcing “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” and “Mystery of Christ Revealed.”

minister

• Original: διάκονος (diakonos, 3:7) — Persian: خادم (khadem) — Risk: Medium. Note: خادم is also the standard title for shrine attendants/custodians at major Shia pilgrimage sites (خادم حرم). Low doctrinal collision but worth translator awareness; context (Paul’s apostolic ministry of the gospel) sufficiently disambiguates.

unsearchable riches of Christ / manifold wisdom of God

• Original: τὸ ἀνεξιχνίαστον πλοῦτος τοῦ Χριστοῦ (3:8); ἡ πολυποίκιλος σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ (3:10) | Literal meaning: “the untrackable/unfathomable riches”; “the many-colored/variegated wisdom”
• Persian rendering: ثروت بی‌کران مسیح (servat-e bi-karan) — Low; حکمت گوناگون خدا (hekmat-e gunagun-e khoda) — Risk: Medium. حکمت (hekmat) is also the technical term of Persian Islamic philosophy, most notably Mulla Sadra’s al-hikmah al-muta’aliyah (“Transcendent Theosophy”), already flagged in the baseline under “grace” (فیض) for its emanationist metaphysics. God’s wisdom displayed through the church (3:10) risks being absorbed into this philosophical hekmat tradition’s own framework of divine self-disclosure through metaphysical emanation, rather than understood as God’s specific historical act of uniting Jew and Gentile in the church, displayed even to angelic “principalities and powers in heavenly places.”

boldness and access

• Original: παρρησία (parrēsia, 3:12); προσαγωγή (reuse from 2:18) | Transliteration: parrēsia | Literal meaning: freedom of speech, confident openness
• Persian rendering: دلیری / اطمینان (deliri) — Risk: Medium. Reinforces the “Assurance of Salvation” doctrine (baseline Critical) — direct, confident approach to God, without the mediated, often anxious approach patterns of shrine intercession-seeking.

inner man

• Original: ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος (ho esō anthrōpos, 3:16) | Persian rendering: انسان درونی (ensan-e daruni) — Risk: Medium. Deliberately avoid باطنی (batani, from باطن/batin, “esoteric/inner reality”) as the modifier: باطن is the specific technical term of Shia and Sufi esoteric theology denoting hidden spiritual truth accessible only through the Imams or a mystical guide, paired against ظاهر (zaher, “exoteric/outer”). درون (“interior,” a neutral, non-technical word) is preferred to keep Paul’s “inner man” (the seat of Spirit-wrought strengthening, 3:16) distinct from this esoteric-knowledge framework.

rooted and grounded / fullness of God

• Original: ῥιζόω, ἑδραιόω (3:17); τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ (3:19) — reuse Chapter 1 treatment of πλήρωμα/کمال (Critical, insan-e-kamil collision) — same caution applies here at full doctrinal weight, as this is the passage’s climactic petition.

power that works in us

• Original: ἡ δύναμις ἡ ἐνεργουμένη ἐν ἡμῖν (3:20) — reuse Chapter 1’s power cluster; [REUSE: قدرت خدا, Medium].
• glory (3:21) — [REUSE: جلال, Medium]

Chapter 4 (Ephesians 4:1–32)

calling / walk worthy

• κλῆσις (klēsis) — [REUSE: دعوت, Medium]; περιπατέω — reuse Chapter 2 treatment (رفتار کردن). “Walk worthy of the calling” (4:1) directly links the two governing metaphors of the book.

lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing

• ταπεινοφροσύνη (tapeinophrosynē), πραΰτης (prautēs), μακροθυμία (makrothymia), ἀνεχόμενοι (anechomenoi) (4:2) — Persian: فروتنی، ملایمت، بردباری، تحمل کردن — Risk: Low, standard virtue vocabulary, broadly compatible with Islamic virtue-ethics categories (no significant collision, similar to the baseline’s treatment of “thanksgiving”).

unity of the Spirit / bond of peace

• ἑνότης τοῦ πνεύματος (henotēs tou pneumatos); σύνδεσμος τῆς εἰρήνης (syndesmos tēs eirēnēs) (4:3) | Persian: اتحاد روح (ettehad-e ruh); پیوند سلام (peyvand-e salam) — Risk: Medium. اتحاد (“unity”) should be handled carefully, since it can evoke pan-Islamic Ummah-unity political rhetoric (the same root concern the baseline documents for امت/“gentiles” and کلیسا/“church”); teach explicitly as Spirit-wrought unity among believers in Christ, not political-religious solidarity.

one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father

• (4:4-6) — an unbroken sequence of terms already established: σῶμα (بدن, High), πνεῦμα (روح‌القدس, Critical), ἐλπίς (“hope” — new term, Persian امید, omid, Risk Low), κύριος (خداوند, Critical), πίστις (ایمان, High), θεός/πατήρ (خدا/پدر, Critical) — all [REUSE] except:

baptism

• Original: βάπτισμα (baptisma, 4:5) | Transliteration: baptisma | Literal meaning: immersion, dipping
• Semantic range: the NT rite of Christian initiation, signifying union with Christ’s death/resurrection (cf. Rom. 6, baseline)
• Persian rendering: تعمید (ta’mid) — Risk: High. تعمید is the settled, established Persian Christian term (Tarjome Ghadeem/Mojdeh tradition) with no live competing rendering, so retained without alternative. Risk is elevated not by lexical ambiguity but by the surrounding Iranian ritual-purification culture (Islamic ghusl/wudu ablutions, and pre-Islamic Zoroastrian purity rites) which may predispose hearers to read baptism as a ritual purification act performed by the believer, rather than (per Rom. 6, already in the baseline) a sign of union with Christ’s own accomplished death and resurrection.

gifts of the ascended Christ

• Original: δόματα (domata, 4:8, citing Ps. 68:18); ἀναβαίνω/καταβαίνω (anabainō/katabainō, “ascended/descended,” 4:9-10) — Persian: عطایا (ata-ha) — reuse spiritual_gifts root (عطایای روحانی, Medium); صعود کرد (so’ud kard, “ascended”) — Low; نزول کرد (nozul kard, “descended”) — Risk: High. نزول is the precise Islamic technical term for the descent of Qur’anic revelation (nozul-e Qur’an / tanzīl), used throughout Islamic theology of revelation for Muhammad. Applying نزول to Christ’s own pre-ascension descent (Eph. 4:9, likely referring to the incarnation or Christ’s descent to the grave) risks framing this Christological event through the lexicon of Qur’anic revelation-descent rather than the incarnation/humiliation-then-exaltation Christological pattern (cf. baseline “incarnation,” Critical). An explanatory note is required at this occurrence; a more neutral verb (پایین آمد, payin amad, “came down”) may be preferable to نزول where possible.

apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers

• ἀπόστολος, προφήτης — [REUSE: رسول High; پیامبر High]; εὐαγγελιστής (euangelistēs, “evangelist”); ποιμήν (poimēn, “shepherd/pastor”); διδάσκαλος (didaskalos, “teacher”) (4:11) — Persian: مبشر (mobasher, from the انجیل/gospel root) — Low-Medium; شبان (shaban, “shepherd”) — Low, broadly positive shared pastoral imagery; معلم (mo’allem, “teacher”) — Low.

equipping / work of ministry / edifying (of the body of Christ)

• καταρτισμός (katartismos, “equipping”); ἔργον διακονίας (ergon diakonias, “work of service”); οἰκοδομὴ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ (oikodomē tou sōmatos tou Christou, “building up of the body of Christ”) (4:12) — Persian: تجهیز (tajhiz) — Low; reuse [بنای متقابل] doctrine and بدن مسیح (High) — this verse is the doctrinal charter for “Gifts for Building Up the Church.”

knowledge of the Son of God / perfect man / fullness of Christ

• ἐπίγνωσις (epignōsis, “full knowledge,” 4:13); τέλειος ἀνήρ (teleios anēr, “mature/perfect man,” 4:13); τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ (to plērōma tou Christou, “the fullness of Christ,” 4:13)
• Persian rendering for ἐπίγνωσις: معرفت کامل — Risk: High. معرفت (ma’refat) is the specific technical term of Sufi mystical epistemology for experiential, esoteric knowledge of God attained through a graduated spiritual path (a “stage” on the Sufi tariqah). Paul’s ἐπίγνωσις in 4:13 is corporate, doctrinal, and gift-mediated (attained through the ministries of v.11-12, not private mystical ascent); a qualifying phrase (“شناخت کامل و مشترک ایمانداران از پسر خدا”) is recommended over unqualified معرفت.
• Persian rendering for τέλειος ἀνήρ: بلوغ کامل (bolugh-e kamel, “complete maturity”) — Risk: Critical, and the rendering انسان کامل is explicitly rejected here. As already flagged under πλήρωμα (Chapter 1), انسان کامل is the name of a major, specific Sufi doctrine (the mystically-perfected sage who fully manifests the divine attributes). Rendering τέλειος ἀνήρ this way at the very verse where πλήρωμα (“fullness of Christ”) also appears would create a doubled, unmistakable collision with that doctrine at the single most theologically dense verse in the passage. This Language Package therefore departs from a literal “perfect man” rendering and uses the abstract بلوغ کامل (“complete/full maturity”) instead, preserving the sense (the corporate church’s goal of maturity measured by Christ’s own fullness) while avoiding the doctrinally loaded noun انسان.
• πλήρωμα here — reuse کمال, Critical, per Chapter 1.

tossed to and fro / cunning craftiness / wiles

• κλυδωνιζόμενος (klydōnizomenos, “wave-tossed”), πανουργία (panourgia, “craftiness”), μεθοδεία (methodeia, “scheming”) (4:14) — Persian: موج‌زده, حیله‌گری, نیرنگ — Risk: Low.

speaking the truth in love / grow up into him / every joint

• ἀληθεύοντες ἐν ἀγάπῃ (4:15); ἁφή (haphē, “joint/ligament,” 4:16) — Persian: راستی را با محبت گفتن; بند/مفصل — Risk: Low.

vanity of mind / darkened understanding / hardness of heart

• ματαιότης τοῦ νοός (mataiotēs tou noos, 4:17); ἐσκοτωμένοι τῇ διανοίᾳ (eskotōmenoi tē dianoia, 4:18); πώρωσις τῆς καρδίας (pōrōsis tēs kardias, 4:18) — Persian: بطالت ذهن, تاریکی فهم, سخت‌دلی — Risk: Low-Medium. Note: “darkened understanding” begins the light/darkness ethical vocabulary that becomes doctrinally central in Chapter 5 — see below.

lasciviousness / uncleanness / greediness

• ἀσέλγεια (aselgeia), ἀκαθαρσία (akatharsia), πλεονεξία (pleonexia) (4:19) — Persian: بی‌بندوباری، ناپاکی، طمع — Risk: Low-Medium, standard vice vocabulary.

old man / put off — new man / put on

• Original: ὁ παλαιὸς ἄνθρωπος (ho palaios anthrōpos, “the old man/self,” 4:22); ἀποτίθεμαι (apotithemai, “put off,” clothing metaphor); ὁ καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (ho kainos anthrōpos, “the new man/self,” 4:24); ἐνδύομαι (endyomai, “put on”) — note: identical Greek phrase καινὸς ἄνθρωπος as 2:15, but here in an individual, ethical-renewal sense rather than the corporate, Jew-Gentile-unity sense
• Semantic range: a clothing metaphor for decisive, once-for-all identity change, not gradual self-improvement
• English variants: “put off…the old man…put on the new man” (KJV/ESV); “put off your old self…put on the new self” (NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: grounds “Walking in Newness of Life” in a decisive change of identity secured in Christ, worked out through ongoing renewal (“be renewed,” ἀνανεόω, present tense) of the mind
• Persian rendering: انسان کهنه (از تن به در کردن) / انسان نو (پوشیدن) (ensan-e kohne / ensan-e no) — Risk: High. Two distinct risks: (1) possible conflation with the corporate “one new man” of 2:15 (translators must supply context distinguishing individual renewal here from corporate new-humanity there); (2) possible flattening into a generic Islamic tawbah (repentance, “turning over a new leaf”) framework of moral self-improvement through renewed resolve, rather than a change grounded in union with Christ’s own death and resurrection (cf. Rom. 6, baseline). Deliberately renders نو (“new,” ordinary word) rather than کامل (avoiding any echo of the کمال/insan-e-kamil collision already flagged twice above).

created in righteousness and true holiness

• κτισθέντα ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ἁγιότητι τῆς ἀληθείας (4:24) — [REUSE: عدالت, Critical; مقدس root, Medium/High]

grieve the Holy Spirit

• μὴ λυπεῖτε τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον (4:30) | Transliteration: lypeite | Persian: روح‌القدس را محزون نسازید (Ruh-ol-Qods ra mahzun nasazid) — Risk: Medium. This verse offers a valuable, positive teaching opportunity reinforcing the baseline’s Critical “holy_spirit” doctrine: only a personal being can be grieved — this directly counters the mainstream Islamic identification of the Holy Spirit with the impersonal angel Jibril already flagged in the baseline.

anger, bitterness, wrath, clamor, evil speaking, malice / kind, tenderhearted, forgiving

• ὀργή (reuse), πικρία (pikria), θυμός (thymos), κραυγή (kraugē), βλασφημία (blasphēmia), κακία (kakia); χρηστός (chrēstos), εὔσπλαγχνος (eusplagchnos), χαρίζομαι (charizomai) (4:31-32) — Persian: کینه، خشم، غضب، فریاد، بدگویی، بدخواهی / مهربان، دلسوز، بخشنده — Risk: Low-Medium. “Forgiving” here reuses the آمرزش root established in Chapter 1, applied now to interpersonal forgiveness modeled on God’s forgiveness “for Christ’s sake” (4:32) — an important Christ-centered qualifier that must not be dropped, distinguishing this from a generic virtue of leniency.

Chapter 5 (Ephesians 5:1–33)

imitators of God

• Original: μιμηταὶ τοῦ θεοῦ (mimētai tou theou, 5:1) | Transliteration: mimētai | Literal meaning: imitators, mimics
• Persian rendering: پیروی کردن از خدا (peyravi kardan) — Risk: High. The dictionary-literal rendering تقلید کردن (taqlid kardan) must be avoided: تقلید is the specific, load-bearing technical term of Shia jurisprudence for a lay believer’s obligatory practice of following the rulings of a chosen senior cleric (marja’ al-taqlid) — an entire structural feature of practicing Shia religious life. Rendering “imitators of God” with تقلید would strongly evoke this clerical-authority-following framework rather than Paul’s intended sense: reflecting God’s own character (specifically, his self-giving love, 5:2) as a beloved child reflects a parent. پیروی (“following,” a more generic word) or a descriptive phrase (“شبیه خدا شدن,” “becoming like God”) is preferred.

sacrifice / offering

• Original: θυσία (thysia), προσφορά (prosphora) (5:2) | Transliteration: thysia, prosphora | Literal meaning: a sacrifice; an offering brought near
• Semantic range: cultic, sacrificial-system vocabulary applied to Christ’s self-giving death
• Persian rendering: قربانی (qorbani) — Risk: Critical. قربانی is deeply embedded in two live Persian-Islamic ritual frameworks: (1) the annual Eid al-Qorban/Eid-e Qorban (Feast of Sacrifice) commemorating Ibrahim’s near-sacrifice of his son, involving actual repeated animal sacrifice; and (2) Shia Ashura theology’s description of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom in sacrificial terms. Christ’s sacrifice (5:2, echoing 1:7 and 2:13-16) must be taught as a unique, historical, once-for-all, sufficient atonement — explicitly distinguished from both the repeated, non-atoning ritual sacrifice of Eid and the devotional martyrdom-sacrifice framework of Ashura, following the same logic the baseline already applies to “salvation” and “intercession.”

fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, idolater

• πορνεία (porneia), ἀκαθαρσία (akatharsia, reuse), πλεονεξία (pleonexia, reuse), εἰδωλολάτρης (eidōlolatrēs, 5:3,5) — Persian: زنا/بی‌عفتی، ناپاکی، طمع، بت‌پرست — Risk: Medium for بت‌پرست (bot-parast, “idolater”): a genuinely compatible bridge concept, since Islamic anti-shirk theology already condemns idolatry in the strongest terms; care only needed so covetousness-as-idolatry (5:5) is not lost in translation as a metaphor.

kingdom of Christ and of God

• ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ (5:5) — [REUSE: ملکوت خدا, Medium]

light / darkness (children of light)

• Original: φῶς (phōs, “light”); σκότος (skotos, “darkness”) (5:8) | Transliteration: phōs; skotos | Literal meaning: literal light and darkness
• Semantic range: a common NT ethical-spiritual dualism — light = truth, holiness, God’s presence; darkness = sin, ignorance, Satan’s domain
• English variants: uniform
• Contextual theological meaning: believers are not merely in the light but are light “in the Lord” — an identity claim grounding ethical transformation (“walk as children of light,” 5:8)
• Persian rendering: نور / تاریکی (nur / tariki) — Risk: Critical. This is one of the most significant indigenous-substrate collisions in the entire curriculum. Zoroastrianism — Iran’s own pre-Islamic state religion, still practiced by a minority and deeply embedded in Persian cultural memory, poetry, and the Nowruz calendar — is organized around a foundational cosmic dualism between Ahura Mazda (light, order, goodness) and Angra Mainyu/Ahriman (darkness, chaos, evil), engaged in an ongoing cosmic struggle of comparable, opposing forces. Paul’s light/darkness ethical language in Ephesians 5 could easily be assimilated into this native dualistic framework — as two rival, semi-autonomous cosmic principalities — rather than understood as it is intended: darkness is not a co-eternal rival power but a defeated, subordinate condition that believers have been definitively transferred out of by grace (5:8, “ye were sometimes darkness, but now are light in the Lord” — a completed transfer, not an ongoing battle between equals). This same caution extends to the “principalities and powers of darkness” vocabulary in 6:12 (see Chapter 6 below) — the connection between these two passages should be made explicit in teaching.

fruit of the Spirit

• ὁ καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματος (5:9, textual variant; cf. Gal. 5:22) — Persian: میوهٔ روح (mive-ye ruh) — Risk: Low-Medium.

redeeming the time

• ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν (5:16) — Persian: وقت را غنیمت شمردن — Risk: Low.

be filled with the Spirit

• Original: πληροῦσθε ἐν Πνεύματι (plērousthe en Pneumati, 5:18) — note: same root πληρ- as πλήρωμα, but here a verb of ongoing, repeated filling, contrasted with drunkenness
• Persian rendering: از روح پُر شوید (az Ruh por shavid) — Risk: Medium. Should be distinguished carefully in teaching from folk-Islamic and pre-Islamic Persian concepts of ecstatic spirit-possession (including jinn-possession beliefs still present in popular culture) — this is Spirit-empowered, sober, communal worship (5:19-20), not involuntary ecstatic trance.

psalms, hymns, spiritual songs / giving thanks

• ψαλμός, ὕμνος, ᾠδὴ πνευματική (5:19); εὐχαριστία (reuse) — [REUSE: شکرگزاری, Low]; مزامیر/سرودها/ترانه‌های روحانی — Risk: Low.

submitting yourselves / wives submit to husbands / husbands love wives / head

• Original: ὑποτάσσω (hypotassō, “submit, place under,” 5:21, 5:22, 5:24); κεφαλή (reuse from Ch.1, 5:23) | Transliteration: hypotassō | Literal meaning: to arrange under, to subordinate
• Semantic range: voluntary ordering within a relationship, ranging from military rank-ordering to relational deference — note 5:21’s “submitting yourselves one to another” frames the entire household code as mutual, prior to the specific wife-to-husband instruction
• Contextual theological meaning: the doctrinal core of “Household Codes and Christ-Centered Relationships” — wives’ submission is explicitly modeled on the church’s relationship to Christ, and husbands’ headship is explicitly redefined and constrained by Christ’s self-sacrificial love for the church (5:25), not by unilateral authority
• Persian rendering: تابع بودن / اطاعت کردن (taba’ budan / eta’at kardan) — Risk: High. This vocabulary intersects directly with Iran’s own codified Islamic family law, which grants the husband formal legal headship (qavamiyat, rooted in Qur’an 4:34) over the household, including matters such as travel permission and residence. Persian hearers — especially women — will likely bring the weight of this existing legal structure to the text. Ephesians 5:21-33 must be taught with the mutual-submission framing of 5:21 kept structurally prior and controlling, and with husbands’ headship (5:23, 25) explicitly redefined by Christ’s self-giving, life-laying-down love (5:25) rather than confirmed as unilateral legal authority. This is a doctrinally sensitive passage requiring theologian-level review for every translated occurrence, not merely native-speaker review.

sanctify and cleanse with the washing of water by the word

• ἁγιάζω (reuse), καθαρίζω (katharizō, “cleanse”), τὸ λουτρὸν τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι (to loutron tou hydatos en rhēmati, 5:26) — Persian: تقدیس و پاک ساختن با شست‌وشوی آب از طریق کلام — Risk: Medium, baptismal-imagery echo of 4:5 (تعمید, High); note also the کلام/“word” collision flagged fully under Chapter 6 below.

glorious church, without spot or wrinkle / holy and without blemish

• ἔνδοξος (endoxos), σπίλος (spilos), ῥυτίς (rhytis); ἅγιος καὶ ἄμωμος (reuse from 1:4) (5:27) — Persian: باشکوه، بی‌لک، بی‌چروک؛ مقدس و بی‌عیب — Risk: Low.

members of his body / one flesh / great mystery

• μέλη τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ (melē tou sōmatos autou, 5:30); μία σάρξ (mia sarx, “one flesh,” 5:31, citing Gen. 2:24); τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν (5:32) — Persian: اعضای بدن او — Low; یک تن — Low; reuse راز (Critical) — here applied typologically to Christ and the church via the marriage union, requiring the same esoteric-knowledge caution already established for μυστήριον in Chapter 1, now intensified by the marital-devotional-poetry resonance Persian love-mysticism (Rumi’s Beloved-imagery) may add.

reverence (wife toward husband)

• φοβέομαι (phobeomai, “fear/respect,” 5:33) — Persian: احترام / حرمت گذاشتن (ehteram/hormat) — Risk: Medium, same household-codes sensitivity as ὑποτάσσω above.

Chapter 6 (Ephesians 6:1–24)

children obey parents / honor father and mother

• ὑπακούω (hypakouō, “obey,” 6:1); τίμα (tima, “honor,” citing the Fifth Commandment, 6:2) — Persian: اطاعت کردن / احترام گذاشتن — Risk: Low-Medium, broadly compatible household ethic.

fathers, provoke not to wrath / nurture and admonition

• παιδεία (paideia, “training/discipline”), νουθεσία (nouthesia, “instruction/admonition”) (6:4) — Persian: تربیت و نصیحت (tarbiat va nasihat) — reuse نصیحت root established in the baseline’s “exhort” entry — Risk: Low.

servants and masters

• Original: δοῦλος (doulos, “slave/servant”); κύριος (kyrios, lowercase sense, “master/owner”) (6:5-9) — note: identical Greek word κύριος used here for a human slave-master and elsewhere in the NT for Christ’s own exclusive Lordship (κύριος, [REUSE: خداوند, Critical]) — translators must ensure Persian rendering visibly distinguishes the two senses (a human “master,” ارباب/arbab, versus Christ as خداوند) so the doctrine of Christ’s unique Lordship is never diluted by the shared root
• Persian rendering: غلامان و اربابان (gholaman va arbaban) — Risk: Medium. Requires historical-cultural framing: this addresses the concrete first-century institution of household slavery (not contemporary employer-employee relations directly), and its instructions to slaves (“as unto Christ,” “not as men-pleasers”) must not be read as a general endorsement of the institution, but as instruction for conduct within an existing social structure Paul does not here abolish outright — a point requiring careful pastoral explanation given the passage’s frequent historical misuse.

be strong in the Lord / whole armor of God

• Original: κραταιόω (krataioō, “be strengthened,” reuse κράτος root from 1:19); πανοπλία τοῦ θεοῦ (panoplia tou theou, “the whole/full armor of God,” 6:11,13) | Transliteration: panoplia | Literal meaning: complete equipment of a heavily-armed soldier (root of English “panoply”)
• Semantic range: full defensive and offensive military equipment
• English variants: “whole armour of God” (KJV), “full armor of God” (ESV/NIV)
• Contextual theological meaning: the controlling image for “Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God” — defensive posture (“stand,” 6:11,13,14) against a real, personal, organized spiritual enemy, using divinely-supplied resources, not human strength or literal weapons
• Persian rendering: زره تمام خدا (zereh-e tamam-e khoda) — Risk: High. Deliberately renders “whole/full” as تمام rather than کامل, to avoid any echo of the کمال/insan-e-kamil collision already flagged twice above. The more significant risk here is contextual rather than lexical: Iran’s own state and religious discourse makes heavy, frequent use of literal and political-religious “holy war” (jihad) and militarized-defense (e.g. Basij mobilization) rhetoric. Ephesians 6’s armor imagery must be taught with unmistakable clarity as an individual and corporate spiritual metaphor for prayer, truth, righteousness, faith, and Scripture — not read through, or allowed to reinforce, any literal or political-military application, given the real risks such a misreading could create for an underground house-church community.

principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places

• Original: ἀρχή (archē), ἐξουσία (exousia), κοσμοκράτωρ (kosmokratōr, “world-ruler,” a term unique to this verse in the NT), τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις (ta pneumatika tēs ponērias en tois epouraniois, “the spiritual [forces] of evil in the heavenly places”) (6:12)
• Semantic range: a comprehensive taxonomy of organized, hierarchical, personal spiritual evil — not vague or diffuse “evil” but ranked, purposeful hostile powers
• English variants: “principalities…powers…rulers of the darkness of this world…spiritual wickedness in high places” (KJV); “rulers…authorities…cosmic powers over this present darkness…spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (ESV)
• Contextual theological meaning: the explicit target of spiritual warfare — real, defeated (per Christ’s exaltation “far above” them, 1:21) but still-active hostile spiritual authorities, engaged not with human weapons but through prayer and the “whole armor of God”
• Persian rendering: فرمانروایی‌ها و قدرت‌ها، جهانداران این ظلمت، و نیروهای شرارت روحانی در جایگاه‌های آسمانی (farmanravayiha va qodratha, jahandaran-e in zolmat, va niruha-ye sharrat-e ruhani) — Risk: Critical. This entire cluster intersects with a genuine, deep indigenous Persian substrate: Zoroastrian dualistic cosmology (Ahura Mazda’s forces of light versus Angra Mainyu’s forces of darkness, engaged in real, organized cosmic conflict) predisposes Persian hearers to a framework in which these “powers of darkness” could be understood as a roughly co-equal, rival cosmic army rather than as created, already-defeated beings operating strictly under Christ’s sovereign authority (Eph. 1:21-22, already exalted “far above” them before 6:12 ever describes the conflict). This must be taught in explicit connection with 1:20-22: the church does not fight a battle with an uncertain outcome against an equal power, but stands firm, already secure, against a defeated enemy whose ultimate authority has already been broken. Folk-Islamic beliefs about jinn (also present in Iranian popular culture) provide a secondary, lower-stakes point of contact but do not carry the same risk of a rival-cosmic-power misreading that the Zoroastrian substrate does.

wiles of the devil / stand

• μεθοδεία τοῦ διαβόλου (methodeia tou diabolou, 6:11); ἵστημι/ἀνθίστημι (histēmi/anthistēmi, “stand/withstand,” 6:11,13,14) — Persian: نیرنگ‌های شیطان (neyrang-haye sheytan) — Risk: Medium, broadly compatible (شیطان/Sheytan is the shared Qur’anic figure, Iblis); ایستادن / مقاومت کردن (istadan) — Risk: Low.

belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, gospel-shoes of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the Spirit / word of God

• ζώνη τῆς ἀληθείας; θώραξ τῆς δικαιοσύνης ([REUSE: عدالت, Critical]); ἑτοιμασία τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς εἰρήνης ([REUSE: انجیل High; سلام Medium]); ὁ θυρεὸς τῆς πίστεως ([REUSE: ایمان, High]); ἡ περικεφαλαία τοῦ σωτηρίου ([REUSE: نجات, Critical]); ἡ μάχαιρα τοῦ πνεύματος, ὅ ἐστιν ῥῆμα θεοῦ (6:14-17)
• Persian rendering for the individual pieces (کمربند حقیقت، زرهٴ عدالت، کفشِ انجیلِ سلام، سپرِ ایمان، کلاهخودِ نجات) — Risk follows the underlying reused doctrine terms (Critical for the righteousness/salvation/faith pieces per baseline).

word of God

• Original: ῥῆμα θεοῦ (rhēma theou, 6:17) | Transliteration: rhēma | Literal meaning: an uttered word, spoken statement (distinct from λόγος, the broader term for “word/reason”)
• Semantic range: here, a specific scriptural utterance functioning as the believer’s offensive weapon
• Contextual theological meaning: Scripture itself, wielded actively in spiritual warfare — connects to the baseline’s “inspiration_of_scripture” doctrine
• Persian rendering: کلام خدا (kalam-e khoda) — Risk: Critical. کلام is not a neutral word in Persian religious vocabulary: it is the precise term of Islamic ‘ilm al-kalam (the discipline of Islamic theology) and — most critically — the Qur’an is itself formally titled کلام‌الله (Kalamullah, “the Word/Speech of God”) in Islamic doctrine, understood as God’s own uncreated, eternal, verbatim speech. Rendering “the word of God” (the Bible/Scripture, used offensively in spiritual warfare) as کلام خدا risks the Persian hearer assuming an equivalence, or even direct reference, to the Qur’an itself, or importing the Qur’an’s doctrine of verbatim, uncreated divine dictation onto biblical inspiration — precisely the wahy collision the baseline already documents under “inspiration_of_scripture.” This established Persian Christian rendering is retained (it is the settled Tarjome Ghadeem/Mojdeh usage with no viable substitute), but it requires the heaviest possible contextual qualification: it refers here to Christian Scripture, understood as God moving human authors to write in their own words (not verbatim dictation), never to the Qur’an.

praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit / watching with perseverance

• προσευχή (proseuchē), δέησις (deēsis) (6:18); προσκαρτέρησις (proskarterēsis) — Persian: دعا و التماس (do’a) — Risk: Medium. دعا is broadly shared devotional vocabulary across Persian Islamic (including extensive Shia du’a literature, e.g. Sahifa Sajjadiyye) and Christian usage — a genuine bridge — but must be anchored as filial address to the Father through Christ and the Spirit (cf. baseline “intercession,” Critical), not a ritual formula or a petition directed toward the Imams.

ambassador

• πρεσβεύω (presbeuō, 6:20) — Persian: سفیر (safir) — Risk: Medium. Paul’s self-description as “an ambassador in bonds/chains” (6:20) carries real, direct pastoral relevance to the underground house-church context (cf. baseline’s “evangelism” and “christ_centered_ministry” doctrine notes on the genuine legal risk of proclamation in Iran) — this connection should be made explicit in teaching, not merely treated as an ancient historical detail.

benediction: grace, peace, love, faith, incorruption

• χάρις, εἰρήνη, ἀγάπη, πίστις ([all REUSE]); ἀφθαρσία (aphtharsia, “incorruption/sincerity,” 6:24) — Persian: بی‌فسادی / خلوص (kholus) — Risk: Low.

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Coverage Confirmation

All six chapters of Ephesians have been reviewed. No chapter was found to introduce zero new theological vocabulary; each chapter contributes at least one term requiring new (non-Romans-baseline) analysis, summarized here for audit:

Chapter	New load-bearing vocabulary introduced
1	mystery, predestined, redemption, fullness, headship/body (introduced), principalities/powers (introduced), inheritance, sealed/earnest
2 (2:1-10 core; 2:11-22)	dead, trespasses, flesh (ethical), children of wrath, works/good works, workmanship; circumcision, blood of Christ, dividing wall, one new man, reconcile, cross, access, temple
3	fellow heirs/same body/partakers, manifold wisdom, boldness/access, inner man
4	baptism, gifts-of-office (evangelist/pastor/teacher), equipping, perfect man (rejected as انسان کامل; rendered بلوغ کامل), old man/new man (individual)
5	imitators of God (تقلید rejected), sacrifice/offering, light/darkness, filled with the Spirit, submission/headship (household), one flesh/great mystery (typological)
6	armor of God, principalities/powers of darkness (full spiritual-warfare cluster), word of God (کلام خدا), servants/masters, ambassador

No chapter is a “no new vocabulary” chapter in Ephesians; every chapter contributes at least one Critical- or High-risk term requiring dedicated translator guidance beyond the Romans baseline.