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

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual,^(A) sold^(B) as a slave to sin.^{(C) 15} I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.^{(D) 16} And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.^{(E) 17} As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.^{(F) 18} For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[a](G) For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.^{(H) 20} Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.^(I)

²¹ So I find this law at work:^(J) Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being^(K) I delight in God’s law;^{(L) 23} but I see another law at work in me, waging war^(M) against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin^(N) at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?^{(O) 25} Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!^(P)

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law,^(Q) but in my sinful nature^[b] a slave to the law of sin.^(R)