Thus it was that faith counted as righteousness in him. But it was not written for him alone that it was so counted for him, but also for us for whom it is to be counted, for us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was betrayed for our sins and raised up again for our justification.
1 Justified therefore through faith, let us keep peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have got by faith access to that grace in which we stand, and let us exult in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, let us even exult in afflictions, knowing that affliction causes endurance, and endurance quality, and quality, hope, and hope does not disappoint us. Because God's love is diffused in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us; if indeed when we were sick Christ died in time for the sake of us, who were sinful. Indeed, one will scarcely die for a righteous man. Perhaps one does even dare to die for a good man. But God shows his love for us; because it was when we were still sinners that Christ died for us. All the more then, being justified now by his blood, shall we be saved from the anger to come. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled through the death of his son, all the more, now reconciled, shall we be saved by his life; not only that, but exulting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now got this reconciliation.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and through sin, death, so also death went about among all men, because all sinned. Before there was the law there was sin in the world, but when there was no law it was not reckoned as sin. But death was king from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin after the example of the transgression of Adam, who is the type of what was to come.
But the gift of grace is not like the transgression; for if by the transgression of one many died, far more has been the abundance, for the many, of the grace of God and his gift in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ. And the gift is not as when one man sinned; for the judgment from one leads to condemnation, but the gift of grace, after many transgressions, leads to justification. For if by the transgression of one man death was king because of the one, so all the more shall they be kings in life, who have received the abundance of grace and righteousness, through one, Jesus Christ.
So then, just as one blunder meant condemnation for all men, so also one righteous act shall mean the vindication of life for all men; for just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinful, so also through the obedience of the one man the many shall be made righteous. The law came in to increase the transgression; but where the sin has increased, grace has increased even more, so that just as sin was king in death, so also grace shall be king through righteousness for life everlasting, because of Jesus Christ our Lord.
11 What then shall we say? Shall we persist in our sin, so that the grace may be multiplied? Never. How shall we, who died to sin, still live in it? Or do you not know that we, who were baptized for Christ, were baptized for his death? So we were buried with him through the baptism for death; so that, as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of his father, so we too may walk in a renewal of life. For if we were united with him in the same kind of death, so shall we share his resurrection; knowing that the old person who was in us was crucified with him, so the body of our sin might be destroyed, and we shall no longer be the slaves of sin, since one who has died is absolved of sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more, for death no longer has lordship over him. When he died, he died to sin, once for all; but when he lives, he lives for God. Thus do you also count yourselves as dead for sin, but living for God, in Jesus Christ.
Do not then let sin be king in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not give your limbs to sin as the weapons of wrongdoing, but give yourselves to God, as living people who have been dead, and give your limbs to God as the weapons of righteousness. For sin will have no lordship over you, for you are subject not to law but to grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are subject not to the law but to grace? Never. Do you not know that when you give yourselves as slaves to someone, to obey him, you are the slaves of him whom you obey, either of sin, for death, or of obedience, for righteousness? Thanks be to God, though you were the slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that form of teaching which had been made traditional for you; and when set free from sin you were enslaved to righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For as you gave your bodies over as slaves to debauchery and lawlessness, so now give over your bodies as slaves to righteousness, to be sanctified. For when you were the slaves of sin, you were free for righteousness. What was then the harvest you reaped from those acts of which you are now ashamed? Their end is death. But now, set free from sin and enslaved to God, you have your harvest, to be sanctified, and the end is life everlasting. For the stipend of sin is death, but God's gift of grace is life everlasting through Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 Aie you not aware, brothers—I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has power over a person only as long as he is alive? Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband while he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is set free from the law of her husband. So while her husband lives she will be called an adulteress if she goes to another man; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she goes to another man. Thus, my brothers, you also have died for the law through the body of the Christ, to belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead so that we may bear harvest to God. For when we were in the flesh, the passions of our sins, because of the law, worked in our bodies to make us bear harvest to death. But now, by dying, we have been set free from the law, to which we had been subjected, so as to be slaves, in a new way, of the Spirit, and not, in the old way, of the letter.
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? Never. But I never would have known sin except through the law, for I never would have known desire if the law had not said: You shall not desire what is not yours. But it was by getting a starting point through the commandment that sin caused every kind of desire in me, since without the law sin is a dead thing. I once did live without the law; but when the commandment came the sin came to life, and I died, and my commandment for life was found to be for my death. So it was by getting a starting point through the commandment that sin distracted me and, through the commandment, killed me.
Thus the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Then was this good thing death for me? Never. But it was sin, so that sin might be shown, through the good, to be accomplishing my death; so that sin might be surpassingly sinful, because of the commandment. For we know that the law is spiritual; but I ^ carnal, sold into subjection to sin. I do not know what I am doing. I do not do what I want, but what I hate;
that is what I do. But if what I do is what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer I who do this but the sin that lives in me. For I know that good does not live in me, not, that is, in my flesh; for it is in my power to wish for the good, but not to do good. I do not do the good that I want, but the bad that I do not want. That is what I do. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but the sin that lives in me.