¹⁸ Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.
¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.
²⁰ Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord. 
²¹ Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged.
²² Employees, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. 
²³ Everyone, work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. 
²⁴ Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.
²⁵ But if you do what is wrong, you will be paid back for the wrong you have done. For God has no favorites.

Colossians 3:18-25

Many of us do not like the word “submit.” It gives us the idea of we are “less than” the person that we submit to, but I look at it differently. Submission is a gift to the person I have chosen to live my whole lifetime with. It doesn’t mean I don’t have a say, because he loves me and listening is part of his loving. It doesn’t mean that I have to do something that goes against God’s law. That is a perversion of the word as we translate it.

I also replaced the word “slaves” in verse 22 with employees. We work for someone else rather than ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that we can do “less than” we would if it was being done for ourselves. We’re doing it for God, so we do the best we can, and He helps us in that.