17Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.

18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

19They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

20But that is not the way you learned Christ!--

21assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,

22to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,

23and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

24and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.