Romans 6

1So what should we conclude? Should we remain in sin so that grace may grow?

2By no means! We died to sin—how could we go on living in it?

3Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were 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 Father’s glory, we also might walk in a new kind of life.

5For if we have grown together with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly share also in the likeness of his resurrection.

6We know this: our old self was crucified with him to put the body of sin out of action, so that we would no longer serve sin as slaves.

7For whoever has died has been released from sin.

8But if we died together with Christ, we believe that we will live together with him as well,

9since we know that Christ, now raised from the dead, does not die again; death no longer lords it over him.

10For in dying, he died to sin once for all; and in living, he lives to God.

11Likewise, you too must count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12So sin must not reign in your mortal body and make you obey its cravings.

13Do not put the parts of your body at sin’s disposal as weapons for unrighteousness. Instead, put yourselves at God’s disposal as people alive from the dead, and put the parts of your body at God’s disposal as weapons for righteousness.

14For sin will not lord it over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

15What follows? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

16Do you not realize that when you put yourselves at someone’s disposal as slaves who obey, you are the slaves of whomever you obey—whether of sin, resulting in death, or of obedience, resulting in righteousness?

17But thanks be to God: you were once slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart the form of teaching to which you were handed over.

18Freed from sin, you were made slaves to righteousness.

19I am using an everyday comparison because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you once put the parts of your body at the disposal of impurity and lawlessness as slaves, to produce lawlessness, so now put them at the disposal of righteousness as slaves, to produce sanctification.

20For when you were slaves of sin, you were free where righteousness was concerned.

21So what fruit did you get back then from the things that now make you ashamed? For their outcome is death.

22But now, freed from sin and made slaves of God, you have your fruit, which leads to sanctification, and the outcome is eternal life.

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