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¹What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

²For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

³For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

⁴Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

⁵And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

⁶just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

⁷“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

⁸blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

⁹Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.

¹⁰How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

¹¹He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,

¹²and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

¹³For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

¹⁴For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

¹⁵For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

¹⁶That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring — not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

¹⁷as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

¹⁸In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”

¹⁹He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

²⁰No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,

²¹fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

²²That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

²³But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,

²⁴but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,

²⁵who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

¹Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

³Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,

⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

⁵and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

⁷For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die —

⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

⁹Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

¹¹More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

¹²Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned —

¹³for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

¹⁴Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

¹⁵But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.

¹⁶And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

¹⁷For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

¹⁸Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

¹⁹For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

²⁰Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

²¹so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

²By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

⁴We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

⁷For one who has died has been set free from sin.

⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.

¹⁰For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

¹³Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

¹⁷But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,

¹⁸and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

¹⁹I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

²⁰For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

²¹But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

²²But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹Or do you not know, brothers — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?

²For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

³Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

⁴Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

⁵For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

⁶But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

⁷What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

⁸But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

⁹I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

¹⁰The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

¹¹For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

¹²So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.

¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

²²For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

²³but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.