Set free by the Spirit

8 So now there isn’t any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. ³ God has done what was impossible for the Law, since it was weak because of selfishness. God condemned sin in the body by sending his own Son to deal with sin in the same body as humans, who are controlled by sin. ⁴ He did this so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us. Now the way we live is based on the Spirit, not based on selfishness. ⁵ People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit. ⁶ The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. ⁷ So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn’t submit to God’s Law, because it can’t. ⁸ People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God.

⁹ But you aren’t self-centered. Instead you are in the Spirit, if in fact God’s Spirit lives in you. If anyone doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, they don’t belong to him. ¹⁰ If Christ is in you, the Spirit is your life because of God’s righteousness, but the body is dead because of sin. ¹¹ If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your human bodies also, through his Spirit that lives in you.

Psalm 24

A psalm of David.

Demand for genuine change

13 Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. ² He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? ³ No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. ⁴ What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”

⁶ Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷ He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ ⁸ The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. ⁹ Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’”