Ephesians 4:31–32
What does Ephesians 4:31–32 mean?
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander, be put away from you, with all malice.
The short answer
Ephesians 4:31–32 is really one thought in two movements. First, Paul names what has to go: "bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander" — along with malice, the settled desire to see someone hurt. Then, in verse 32, he names what should take their place: kindness, tenderness of heart, and forgiveness, offered the way God in Christ has forgiven us.
The list in verse 31 is worth reading slowly, because it traces how conflict tends to grow. Bitterness is resentment that settles in and sours everything. Wrath and anger are the heat that follows. Outcry is that heat spilling into loud quarreling, and slander is anger turned outward against someone's name and reputation. Malice sits underneath it all — ill will that has made itself at home. Paul's instruction is that all of it "be put away from you," language that sounds like housecleaning. These things are not furniture to arrange more carefully; they are debris to carry out.
Notice that Paul does not pretend anger never arises. Earlier in this same chapter he acknowledges that anger happens and warns against letting the sun go down on it. The concern here is what anger becomes when it is kept — when it hardens into bitterness and malice and starts shaping how we treat people. That is why verse 32 matters so much. Clearing out resentment is not the goal in itself; it makes room for something. Kindness and forgiveness cannot really operate in a heart crowded with grievance.
And the standard for that forgiveness is not how well the other person has behaved. It is how God has treated us in Christ. We forgive as people who have first been forgiven — generously, at cost, and before we deserved it.
What scholars say
Kathleen Long Bostrom takes up a question many readers ask — is the Bible's condemnation of anger absolute, given that Scripture also records God's and Jesus' anger? — and suggests the deeper concern is whether anger shapes our relationships and shuts down reconciliation. William Barclay then describes the positive side: a love that refuses to let bitterness into the heart even when insulted or wronged, and that destroys enemies only by making them friends.
“It is interesting to see the commentators debate whether such judgment against anger is absolute or not. Supporting an absolute reading of Jesus’ words, other Scripture passages are equally strong in their condemnation of anger (Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8; cf. 1 Tim. 2:8; Jas. 1:20, but also Ps. 37:8; Prov. 14:29; Eccl. 7:9). Against it, some commentators point out that the Bible nonetheless records God’s and Jesus’ anger (Matt. 23:17; Mark 3:5); others even refer to the biological basis of anger that makes it inevitable (of course, if biological urges were the measure of ethics, the next passage of Jesus’ sermon makes even less sense!). The concern of Jesus’ saying, however, seems to be less the having of anger than what one does with it: does anger shape our relationships, or preclude reconciliation?”
“(iv) The Christian love goes out to our enemies (Luke 6.27; cp. Matt. 5.44), We have seen that Christian love means unconquerable benevolence and invincible goodwill. No matter what any man does to him, the Christian will never cease to seek that man’s nighest good. No matter how he is insulted, injured, wronged and slandered, the Christian will never hate and will never let bitterness into his heart. When Lincoln was accused of treating his opponents with too much courtesy and kindness, and when it was pointed out to him that his whole duty was to destroy them, he answered: ‘Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?’ The Christian’s only method of destroying his enemies is to love them into being his friends.”
What it means for you
Most of us cannot prevent anger from arising. What we can watch is whether it lodges. A useful practice is to notice where resentment has quietly taken up residence — an old grievance you rehearse, a person whose name still tightens your chest — and to treat that as the debris Paul says to carry out.
Then take one small step in the direction of verse 32: a kind word instead of a cutting one, a decision not to repeat the story that makes someone look bad, a forgiveness you extend before you feel like it. The measure isn't whether they've earned it; it's that God, in Christ, forgave you first.
Ephesians 4 in context
Ephesians 4 opens with Paul urging believers to live in a way worthy of their calling — with humility, gentleness, and patience — because the church is one body held together by one Lord and one faith. Midway through the chapter, he shifts to the practical shape of that life: put off the old self, put on the new, speak truth, deal honestly, and don't let the sun go down on anger. Verses 31–32 conclude this section, gathering up everything corrosive that must go and naming the kindness and forgiveness that mark the new life.