Romans 6–7

¹What, then, shall we say? shall we continue in the sin that the grace may abound? ²let it not be! we who died to the sin—how shall we still live in it? ³are ye ignorant that we, as many as were baptized to Christ Jesus, to his death were baptized? ⁴we were buried together, then, with him through the baptism to the death, that even as Christ was raised up out of the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we in newness of life might walk. ⁵For, if we have become planted together to the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of the rising again; ⁶this knowing, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of the sin may be made useless, for our no longer serving the sin; ⁷for he who hath died hath been set free from the sin. ⁸And if we died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him, ⁹knowing that Christ, having been raised up out of the dead, doth no more die, death over him hath no more lordship; ¹⁰for in that he died, to the sin he died once, and in that he liveth, he liveth to God; ¹¹so also ye, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to the sin, and living to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. ¹²Let not then the sin reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires; ¹³neither present ye your members instruments of unrighteousness to the sin, but present yourselves to God as living out of the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God; ¹⁴for sin over you shall not have lordship, for ye are not under law, but under grace. ¹⁵What then? shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? let it not be! ¹⁶have ye not known that to whom ye present yourselves servants for obedience, servants ye are to him to whom ye obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? ¹⁷and thanks to God, that ye were servants of the sin, and—were obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which ye were delivered up; ¹⁸and having been freed from the sin, ye became servants to the righteousness. ¹⁹In the manner of men I speak, because of the weakness of your flesh, for even as ye did present your members servants to the uncleanness and to the lawlessness—to the lawlessness, so now present your members servants to the righteousness—to sanctification, ²⁰for when ye were servants of the sin, ye were free from the righteousness, ²¹what fruit, therefore, were ye having then, in the things of which ye are now ashamed? for the end of those is death. ²²And now, having been freed from the sin, and having become servants to God, ye have your fruit—to sanctification, and the end life age-during; ²³for the wages of the sin is death, and the gift of God is life age-during in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Chapter 7

¹Are ye ignorant, brethren—for to those knowing law I speak—that the law hath lordship over the man as long as he liveth? ²for the married woman to the living husband hath been bound by law, and if the husband may die, she hath been free from the law of the husband; ³so, then, the husband being alive, an adulteress she shall be called if she may become another man’s; and if the husband may die, she is free from the law, so as not to be an adulteress, having become another man’s. ⁴So that, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of the Christ, for your becoming another’s, who out of the dead was raised up, that we might bear fruit to God; ⁵for when we were in the flesh, the passions of the sins, that are through the law, were working in our members, to bear fruit to the death; ⁶and now we have ceased from the law, that being dead in which we were held, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.

⁷What, then, shall we say? the law is sin? let it not be! but the sin I did not know except through law, for also the covetousness I had not known if the law had not said: ⁸‘Thou shalt not covet;’ and the sin having received an opportunity, through the command, did work in me all covetousness—for apart from law sin is dead. ⁹And I was alive apart from law once, and the command having come, the sin revived, and I died; ¹⁰and the command that is for life, this was found by me for death; ¹¹for the sin, having received an opportunity, through the command, did deceive me, and through it did slay me; ¹²so that the law, indeed, is holy, and the command holy, and righteous, and good. ¹³That which is good then, to me hath it become death? let it not be! but the sin, that it might appear sin, through the good, working death to me, that the sin might become exceeding sinful through the command.

¹⁴For we have known that the law is spiritual, and I am fleshly, sold by the sin; ¹⁵for that which I work, I do not acknowledge; for not what I will, this I practise, but what I hate, this I do. ¹⁶And if what I do not will, this I do, I consent to the law that it is good, ¹⁷and now it is no longer I that work it, but the sin dwelling in me, ¹⁸for I have known that there doth not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, good: for to will is present with me, and to work that which is right I do not find, ¹⁹for the good that I will, I do not; but the evil that I do not will, this I practise. ²⁰And if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it, but the sin that is dwelling in me. ²¹I find, then, the law, that when I desire to do what is right, with me the evil is present, ²²for I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, ²³and I behold another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of the sin that is in my members. ²⁴A wretched man I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? ²⁵I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord; so then, I myself indeed with the mind do serve the law of God, and with the flesh, the law of sin.

Chapter 8