A Call to Return to the Lord

1 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius,^(A) the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah^(B) son of Berekiah,^(C) the son of Iddo:^(D)

² “The Lord was very angry^(E) with your ancestors. ³ Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return^(F) to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’^(G) says the Lord Almighty. ⁴ Do not be like your ancestors,^(H) to whom the earlier prophets^(I) proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways^(J) and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me,^(K) declares the Lord.^{(L) 5} Where are your ancestors now? And the prophets, do they live forever? ⁶ But did not my words^(M) and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your ancestors?^(N)

“Then they repented and said, ‘The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve,^(O) just as he determined to do.’”^(P)

Released From the Law, Bound to Christ

7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters^(A)—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? ² For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him.^{(B) 3} So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress.^(C) But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

⁴ So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law^(D) through the body of Christ,^(E) that you might belong to another,^(F) to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. ⁵ For when we were in the realm of the flesh,^[a](G) the sinful passions aroused by the law^(H) were at work in us,^(I) so that we bore fruit for death.^{(J) 6} But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law^(K) so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.^(L)