True Worship and False

66 Thus says the Lord:

A New Covenant

³¹ “Behold, the ^(A)days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that ^(B)I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, ^[a]though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. ^33 (C)But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: ^(D)I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their ^[b]hearts; ^(E)and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ³⁴ No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for ^(F)they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For ^(G)I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

⁴ Therefore, my brethren, you also have become ^(A)dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should ^(B)bear fruit to God. ⁵ For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law ^(C)were at work in our members ^(D)to bear fruit to death. ⁶ But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve ^(E)in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Sin’s Advantage in the Law

⁷ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, ^(F)I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ^(G)“You shall not covet.” ⁸ But ^(H)sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For ^(I)apart from the law sin was dead. ⁹ I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. ¹⁰ And the commandment, ^(J)which was to bring life, I found to bring death. ¹¹ For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. ¹² Therefore ^(K)the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

Law Cannot Save from Sin

¹³ Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, ^(L)sold under sin. ¹⁵ For what I am doing, I do not understand. ^(M)For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. ¹⁶ If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. ¹⁷ But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ¹⁸ For I know that ^(N)in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. ¹⁹ For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. ²⁰ Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

²¹ I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. ²² For I ^(O)delight in the law of God according to ^(P)the inward man. ²³ But ^(Q)I see another law in ^(R)my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me ^(S)from this body of death? ^25 (T)I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.