Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? … But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. … Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. … So that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to everincreasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. … Just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Ps 119:133; Ro 6:16, Ro 6:22; Ga 4:7, Ro 8:17, Ti 3:7; Ro 6:19, Ro 5:21; Ro 6:17; Ro 7:25

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