7 Or don’t you know, brothers^[a] (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? ² For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. ³ So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man. ⁴ Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God. ⁵ For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death. ⁶ But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

⁶ But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law.

⁷ For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. ⁸ For finding fault with them, he said,