A Living Sacrifice

12 Therefore, I urge you,^(A) brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,^(B) holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

⁵ you also, like living stones, are being built^(A) into a spiritual house^[a](B) to be a holy priesthood,^(C) offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.^(D)

¹³ Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness,^(A) but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.^(B)

¹⁹ I am using an example from everyday life^(A) because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness^(B) leading to holiness.

¹⁵ Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice^(A) of praise—the fruit of lips^(B) that openly profess his name. ¹⁶ And do not forget to do good and to share with others,^(C) for with such sacrifices^(D) God is pleased.

Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ

4 As a prisoner^(A) for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy^(B) of the calling^(C) you have received.

² Do not conform^(A) to the pattern of this world,^(B) but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.^(C) Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is^(D)—his good, pleasing^(E) and perfect will.

¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;^(A) once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Living Godly Lives in a Pagan Society

¹¹ Dear friends,^(B) I urge you, as foreigners and exiles,^(C) to abstain from sinful desires,^(D) which wage war against your soul.^{(E) 12} Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds^(F) and glorify God^(G) on the day he visits us.