Believers Are Dead to Sin, Alive to God

6 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ² May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have become ^[a]united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be ^[b]in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old ^[c]self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be ^[d]done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; ⁷ for he who has died is ^[e]freed from sin.

⁸ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, ^[f]is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, ¹³ and do not go on presenting ^[g]the members of your body to sin as ^[h]instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as ^[i]instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! ¹⁶ Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin ^[j]resulting in death, or of obedience ^[k]resulting in righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that ^[l]though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸ and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, ^[m]resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, ^[n]resulting in sanctification.

²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ Therefore what ^[o]benefit were you then ^[p]deriving ^[q]from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. ²² But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you ^[r]derive your ^[s]benefit, ^[t]resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Shun Idolatry

13 “^[a]If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ ³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him. ⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has ^[b]counseled ^[c]rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of ^[d]slavery, to seduce you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from among you.

⁶ “If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or the wife ^[e]you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom neither you nor your fathers have known, ⁷ of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end), ⁸ you shall not yield to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him. ⁹ But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ So you shall stone him ^[f]to death because he has sought to seduce you from the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of ^[g]slavery. ¹¹ Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such a wicked thing among you.

¹² “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to live in, anyone saying that ¹³ some worthless men have gone out from among you and have seduced the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom you have not known), ¹⁴ then you shall investigate and search out and inquire thoroughly. If it is true and the matter established that this abomination has been done among you, ¹⁵ you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, ^[h]utterly destroying it and all that is in it and its cattle with the edge of the sword. ¹⁶ Then you shall gather all its booty into the middle of its open square and burn the city and all its booty with fire as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God; and it shall be a ^[i]ruin forever. It shall never be rebuilt. ¹⁷ Nothing from that which is put under the ban shall cling to your hand, in order that the Lord may turn from His burning anger and show mercy to you, and have compassion on you and make you increase, just as He has sworn to your fathers, ^18 [j]if you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, ^[k]keeping all His commandments which I am commanding you today, ^[l]and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.