New Testament Plan

¹Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives?

²For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband.

³So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress.

⁴Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.

⁵For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death.

⁶But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.

⁷What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet.

⁸And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead.

⁹Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again

¹⁰and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me.

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

¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

¹³Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! On the contrary, sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave to sin.

¹⁵For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.

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

¹⁷So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me.

¹⁸For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.

¹⁹For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.

²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me.

²¹So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me.

²²For in my inner self I delight in God’s law,

²³but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body.

²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

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

¹Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,

²because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

³What the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering,

⁴in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

⁵For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit.

⁶Now the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace.

⁷The mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so.

⁸Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.

¹⁰Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.

¹¹And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.

¹²So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh,

¹³because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

¹⁴For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.

¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”

¹⁶The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children,

¹⁷and if children, also heirs  — heirs of God and coheirs with Christ — if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.

¹⁹For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.

²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility  — not willingly, but because of him who subjected it  — in the hope

²¹that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

²²For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.

²³Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits  — we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

²⁴Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?

²⁵Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.

²⁶In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unspoken groanings.

²⁷And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

²⁸We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

²⁹For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

³⁰And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

³¹What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

³²He did not even spare his own Son but offered him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?

³³Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies.

³⁴Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.

³⁵Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

³⁶As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

³⁹nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹I speak the truth in Christ  — I am not lying; my conscience testifies to me through the Holy Spirit  —

²that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

³For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the benefit of my brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood.

⁴They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises.

⁵The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.

⁶Now it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

⁷Neither are all of Abraham’s children his descendants. On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac.

⁸That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.

⁹For this is the statement of the promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.

¹⁰And not only that, but Rebekah conceived children through one man, our father Isaac.

¹¹For though her sons had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand —

¹²not from works but from the one who calls — she was told, The older will serve the younger.

¹³As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.

¹⁴What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!

¹⁵For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

¹⁶So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy.

¹⁷For the Scripture tells Pharaoh, I raised you up for this reason so that I may display my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in the whole earth.

¹⁸So then, he has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

¹⁹You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”

²⁰But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”

²¹Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor?

²²And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?

²³And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory  —

²⁴on us, the ones he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

²⁵As it also says in Hosea, I will call Not My People, My People, and she who is Unloved, Beloved.

²⁶And it will be in the place where they were told, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.

²⁷But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, Though the number of Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved;

²⁸since the Lord will execute his sentence completely and decisively on the earth.

²⁹And just as Isaiah predicted: If the Lord of Hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.

³⁰What should we say then? Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness — namely the righteousness that comes from faith.

³¹But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law.

³²Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

³³As it is written, Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over and a rock to trip over, and the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.