Readings for Lent and Easter

The call to holy living

¹² So don’t allow sin to rule in your mortal body, to make you obey its desires. ¹³ Nor should you present your limbs and organs to sin to be used for its wicked purposes. Rather, present yourselves to God, as people alive from the dead, and your limbs and organs to God, to be used for the righteous purposes of his covenant. ¹⁴ Sin won’t actually rule over you, you see, since you are not under law but under grace.

The two types of slavery

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you really are slaves of the one you obey, whether that happens to be sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to final vindication? ¹⁷ Thank God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were committed. ¹⁸ You were freed from sin, and now you have been enslaved to God’s covenant justice.