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. 14 For qthe whole law is fulfilled in one word: r“You shall slove your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Keep in Step with the Spirit
16 But I say, twalk by the Spirit, and you will unot gratify the vdesires of the flesh. 17 For wthe desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, xto keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are yled by the zSpirit, you are anot under the law. 19 Now bthe works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,4 drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that cthose who do5 such things dwill not einherit the kingdom of God. 22 But fthe fruit of the Spirit is glove, hjoy, ipeace, jpatience, kkindness, lgoodness, mfaithfulness, 23 ngentleness, oself-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And pthose who qbelong to Christ Jesus have rcrucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become sconceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Peace with God Through Faith
1 Therefore, since we have been sjustified by faith, we1 have tpeace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained uaccess by faith2 into this grace in which we stand, and we3 rejoice4 vin hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we wrejoice in our sufferings, xknowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and yhope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been zpoured into our hearts athrough the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
6 For bwhile we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us cin that dwhile we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the ewrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were freconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also grejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Death in Adam, Life in Christ
12 Therefore, hjust as sin came into the world ithrough one man, and jdeath kthrough sin, and so death spread to all men5 because lall sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before mthe law was given, but nsin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, owho was a ptype of the one who was to come.
15 But the free qgift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded rfor many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass6 led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness7 leads to sjustification and life for tall men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s uobedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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 self8 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 free9 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.
Slaves to Righteousness
15 What then? vAre we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,10 you are slaves of the one whom you obey, weither of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once xslaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set yfree from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking zin human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to asanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But bwhat fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the cfruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 dFor the wages of sin is death, but the efree gift of God is eternal flife in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Released from the Law
1 Or do you not know, brothers11—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For ga married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.12 3 Accordingly, she will be called an hadulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have idied to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful jpassions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit kfor death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve lin the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the mwritten code.13
The Law and Sin
7 nWhat then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! oYet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, p“You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. qFor apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment rthat promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So sthe law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For tI do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now uit is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that vnothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a wlaw that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I xdelight in the law of God, in my yinner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this zbody of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
