¹³ For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,^[a] but through love become enslaved to one another.^(A)

¹⁶ As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.^(A)

¹⁹ For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might gain all the more.^(A)

⁹ But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.^(A)

Please Others, Not Yourselves

15 We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.^{(A) 2} Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor.^(B)

¹⁴ For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”^(A)

²¹ being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

¹⁸ and that you, having been set free from sin, have become enslaved to righteousness.^{(A) 19} I am speaking in human terms because of your limitations.^[a] For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to even more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.^(B)

²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.^{(C) 21} So what fruit did you then gain from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.^{(D) 22} But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the fruit you have leads to sanctification, and the end is eternal life.^(E)

² Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill^[a] the law of Christ.^(A)

⁵ in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.^{(A) 6} And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our^[a] hearts, crying, “Abba!^[b] Father!”^{(B) 7} So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir through God.^[c]