Letters to the Churches

neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace.

What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid.

Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered;

and being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness.

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification.

For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness.

What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.

For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Or are ye ignorant, brethren (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law hath dominion over a man for so long time as he liveth?

For the woman that hath a husband is bound by law to the husband while he liveth; but if the husband die, she is discharged from the law of the husband.

So then if, while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if the husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man.

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Howbeit, I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet:

but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting: for apart from the law sin is dead.

And I was alive apart from the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died;

and the commandment, which was unto life, this I found to be unto death:

for sin, finding occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and through it slew me.

So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.

Did then that which is good become death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good;—that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful.

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.