Christ Has Set Us Free
1 For freedom Christ has set us tfree; ustand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a vyoke of wslavery.
2 xLook: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to yevery man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified1 by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by zfaith, we ourselves eagerly await for the bhope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus cneither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
7 You were drunning well. eWho hindered you from obeying the ftruth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 gA little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 hI have confidence in the Lord that iyou will take no other view, and the one who is jtroubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers,2 still preach3 circumcision, kwhy am I still being persecuted? In that case the loffense of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would memasculate themselves!
13 For you were called to nfreedom, brothers. oOnly do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love pserve one another.
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
1 vWhat shall we say then? wAre we to continue in sin that xgrace may abound? 2 By no means! yHow can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been zbaptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were aburied therefore with him by baptism into death, bin order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in cnewness of life.
5 For if we have been dunited with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our eold self1 was fcrucified with him in order that the gbody of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be henslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free2 from sin. 8 Now iif we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being jraised from the dead, will knever die again; ldeath mno longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, nonce for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves odead to sin and palive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its qpassions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but rpresent yourselves to God as those who have been brought sfrom death to life, and your members to God as instruments tfor righteousness. 14 For sin will have no udominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
