[1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may
abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3]
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have
been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with
him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified
with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer
be enslaved to sin. [7] For he who has died is freed from sin. [8] But if
we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. [9]
For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again;
death no longer has dominion over him. [10] The death he died he died to
sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also
must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. [12]
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their
passions. [13] Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of
wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from
death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
[14] For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law
but under grace. [15] What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law
but under grace? By no means! [16] Do you not know that if you yield
yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom
you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads
to righteousness? [17] But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves
of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to
which you were committed, [18] and, having been set free from sin, have
become slaves of righteousness. [19] I am speaking in human terms, because
of your natural limitations. For just as you once yielded your members to
impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to
righteousness for sanctification. [20] When you were slaves of sin, you
were free in regard to righteousness. [21] But then what return did you get
from the things of which you are now ashamed? 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 return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal
life. [23] For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
