Romans
Chapter 6
1 So what should we say? Should we keep sinning so that God’s kindness can increase?
2 Of course not! How can we, who have died to sin, still live in it?
3 Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 We are buried with him through baptism into death so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by God’s glory, we too may live a new life.
5 If we have died with him, we will also live with him.
6 Understand that our old self was put to death with him so that our sinful nature could be done away with, and from now on we should not be slaves to sin.
7 When someone dies, they are free from sin.
8 If we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him.
9 Knowing that Christ was raised from the dead, he won’t die again; death no longer rules over him.
10 When he died, he died to sin once, but now that he lives, he lives for God.
11 Think of yourselves as truly dead to sin, but alive to God because of Jesus Christ our Lord.
12 Do not let sin control your body that must die, making you obey its desires.
13 Do not use your body parts as tools for doing wrong and sinning, but give yourselves to God as people who have been brought back to life from death, and use your body parts as tools for doing right for God.
14 Sin will not control you, because you are not under the law, but under God’s kindness.
15 So what? Should we keep sinning because we are not controlled by the law but by God’s kindness? Certainly not!
16 Don’t you know that when you give yourselves to someone as obedient servants, you are the servants of the one you obey, whether you’re serving sin, which leads to death, or following obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 Thank God that you used to be slaves to sin, but now you have followed the teaching given to you with all your heart.
18 After being set free from sin, you became servants of doing right.
19 I talk in human terms because of your weak bodies: just like you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and more and more wrongdoing, now offer yourselves as slaves to right living that leads to holiness.
20 When you served sin, you were not bound by righteousness.
21 What did you gain from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things lead to death.
22 Now that you are free from sin and are servants to God, your actions lead to a holy life and result in eternal life.
23 The payment for sin is death, but God’s gift is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.