(2 Corinthians 4:7–18)
1
What, then, will we say? Will we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2
Let it not be! We who died to sin—how will we still live in it?
3
Are you ignorant that we, as many as were immersed into Christ Jesus, were immersed into His death?
4
We were buried together, then, with Him through the immersion into death, that even as Christ was raised up out of the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
5
For if we have become planted together to the likeness of His death, [so] we also will be of the resurrection;
6
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with [Him], that the body of sin may be made useless, for our no longer serving sin,
7
for he who has died has been set free from sin.
8
And if we died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with Him,
9
knowing that Christ, having been raised up out of the dead, dies no more; death has no more lordship over Him;
10
for in that He died, He died to sin once, and in that He lives, He lives to God;
11
so also you, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, and living to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
12
Do not let then sin reign in your mortal body, to obey it in its desires;
13
neither present your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as living out of the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God;
14
for sin will not have lordship over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
The Wages of Sin
15
What then? Will we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Let it not be!
16
Have you not known that to whom you present yourselves servants for obedience, servants you are to him to whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?
17
And thanks to God, that you were servants of sin, and—were obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were delivered up;
18
and having been freed from sin, you became servants to righteousness.
19
I speak in a human [way], because of the weakness of your flesh, for even as you presented your members servants to the uncleanness and to the lawlessness—to the lawlessness, so now present your members servants to righteousness—to sanctification,
20
for when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
21
What fruit, therefore, were you having then, in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those [is] death.
22
And now, having been freed from sin, and having become servants to God, you have your fruit—to sanctification, and the end continuous life;
23
for the wages of sin [is] death, and the gift of God [is] continuous life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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