God's Judgment and the Law

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God

and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law;

an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

The Righteousness of God Through Faith

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

The Promise Realized Through Faith

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Slaves to Righteousness

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Released from the Law

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

The Law and Sin

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

The Message of Salvation to All

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

Fulfilling the Law Through Love

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.