Romans 6

1What then are we to say? Are we to stay on in sin, so that grace may increase all the more? 2Certainly not! We are people who died to sin; how could we still be living in it? 3Or have you not grasped that everyone among us who was baptized into Christ Jesus was baptized into his death? 4So through baptism we were buried with him into death, in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a life that is new.

5For if we have grown into one with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly be one with him in the likeness of his resurrection as well. 6We know this: our old self was nailed to the cross with him, so that the body of sin would be stripped of its power and we would no longer serve sin as slaves. 7For anyone who has died is declared free from sin. 8Now if we died along with Christ, we believe we are also going to share in his life. 9For we know that Christ, once raised from the dead, does not die any more; death is no longer his master. 10When he died, he died to sin once and for all; and now that he lives, he lives for God. 11In the same way, you also are to count yourselves as dead to sin, and as living for God in Christ Jesus.

12So do not let sin reign as king in your mortal body, making you obey its desires. 13Do not keep handing over the parts of your body to sin as weapons for wrongdoing. Instead, hand yourselves over to God, as people who were dead and are now alive, and hand over the parts of your body to God as weapons for righteousness. 14Sin will not be lord over you, for you do not live under the law but under grace.

15What then? Should we go ahead and sin, since we live under grace and not under the law? Certainly not! 16Surely you know this: if you put yourselves at someone’s disposal as slaves, ready to obey, then you belong as slaves to the one you obey. That master is either sin, bringing death, or obedience, bringing righteousness. 17But God be thanked! Once you were slaves of sin, yet you gave wholehearted obedience to the pattern of teaching into whose care you were handed. 18Freed from sin, you were made slaves of righteousness. 19I am putting this in everyday human terms because of your natural human weakness. Just as you once handed over the parts of your body as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, which only led to more lawlessness, so now hand them over as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness.

20Back when sin owned you as slaves, you were free, as far as righteousness was concerned. 21So what fruit did you get back then from the things that now make you ashamed? Those things end in death. 22Now, though, freed from sin and made slaves of God, you have fruit that leads to holiness, and its outcome is eternal life. 23The wages sin pays are death, but God’s free gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.