Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹² Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you bow to it in its affections and lusts. ¹³ Neither give your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But give yourselves unto God as people who are alive from death, and give your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. ¹⁴ Let not sin have power over you. For you are not under the law, but under grace.

  ¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. ¹⁶ Do you not consider that whomever you commit yourselves to, as servants to obey, his servants you are? – whomever you bow to, whether it be through sin to death, or through obedience to righteousness. ¹⁷ But God be thanked that, though you were once the servants of sin, you have conformed with heart to the model of instruction unto which you were delivered. ¹⁸ You are then made free from sin, and have become the servants of righteousness.

  ¹⁹ I will speak plainly, because of the infirmity of your flesh. Just as you once gave your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, from iniquity to iniquity, so now give your members as servants to righteousness so that you may be sanctified. ²⁰ For when you were the servants of sin, you were not under righteousness. ²¹ What fruit had you then, in those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now you are delivered from sin, and made the servants of God, and have as your fruit to be sanctified, and the end everlasting life. ²³ For the reward of sin is death, but eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

⁴⁰ He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me, receives him who sent me. ⁴¹ He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, will receive the reward of a righteous man. ⁴² And whosoever gives one of these little ones to drink a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, I tell you of a truth, he shall not lose his reward.