1 WHAT shall we say then? Shall we remain in sin so that grace may be great?
2 Never. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have grown into union with him by the likeness of his death, surely we shall be united with him by the likeness of his resurrection.
6 For we know this, that our old-time humanity was crucified with him, in order that the sinful body might be made powerless, that we might no longer be slaves of sin.
7 For one who has died has been pronounced righteous and free from sin.
8 But if we died with Christ we believe that we shall live with him,
9 knowing that Christ, after being raised from the dead, dies no more; death no more reigns over him.
10 For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life that he lives, he lives to God.
11 So you must think yourselves dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you will obey its lusts,
13 and do not yield your members to sin as the instruments of wickedness; but present yourselves to God as men once dead, but now living, and yield your members to God as the instruments of righteousness.
14 For sin shall not be king over you; for you are not under law, but under grace.
15 What then? May we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Never.
16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as servants intending obedience, you are the servants of the one you obey, whether of sin, resulting in death, or of obedience, resulting in righteousness?
17 Thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin you became obedient from the heart to the type of teaching in which you were instructed.
18 You were made free from sin and made servants to righteousness.
19 I am speaking humanly on account of the weakness of your human nature. As you did present your members as servants to impurity and to lawlessness to do lawlessness, so now you have presented your members as servants to righteousness for holy living.
20 When you were servants of sin you were free from righteousness.
21 What fruit did you have then? Fruit of which you are now ashamed; for the end of those things is death.
22 But now freed from sin and having become servants of God you have your fruit in holy living and its outcome, life eternal.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord.