⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

¹⁵ then, when desire has conceived, it engenders sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.^(A)

⁶ He will repay according to each one’s deeds:^{(A) 7} to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, ⁸ while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but injustice, there will be wrath and fury.^{(B) 9} There will be affliction and distress for everyone who does evil, both the Jew first and the Greek,^{(C) 10} but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, both the Jew first and the Greek.

The Examples of Abel, Enoch, and Noah

⁴ By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable^[a] sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith^[b] he still speaks.^(A)

¹⁶ Do you not know that, if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?^(A)

The New Life in Christ

12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship.^(A)

²³ But if you do not do this, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.

⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law sin lies dead.^{(A) 9} I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived

¹³ “What a weariness this is,” you say, and you sniff at it,^[a] says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord.^(A)