The Lord’s Servant Will Bring Righteousness to the World

This is what the Lord God says:

No Longer Slaves to Sin, but God’s Servants

6 What should we say then? Should we continue to sin so that God’s kindness ^[a] will increase? ² That’s unthinkable! As far as sin is concerned, we have died. So how can we still live under sin’s influence?

³ Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ When we were baptized into his death, we were placed into the tomb with him. As Christ was brought back from death to life by the glorious power of the Father, so we, too, should live a new kind of life. ⁵ If we’ve become united with him in a death like his, certainly we will also be united with him when we come back to life as he did. ⁶ We know that the person we used to be was crucified with him to put an end to sin in our bodies. Because of this we are no longer slaves to sin. ⁷ The person who has died has been freed from sin.

⁸ If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, who was brought back to life, will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. ¹⁰ When he died, he died once and for all to sin’s power. But now he lives, and he lives for God. ¹¹ So consider yourselves dead to sin’s power but living for God in the power Christ Jesus gives you.

John Baptizes Jesus^(A)

¹³ Then Jesus appeared. He came from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. ¹⁴ But John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you. Why are you coming to me?”

¹⁵ Jesus answered him, “This is the way it has to be now. This is the proper way to do everything that God requires of us.”

Then John gave in to him. ¹⁶ After Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up from the water. Suddenly, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down as a dove to him. ¹⁷ Then a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love—my Son with whom I am pleased.”