"Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

"and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

"In solemn truth I tell you," Jesus replied, "every one who commits sin is a slave

For although they knew God, yet they did not glorify him as God, nor give him thanks; but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened.

But God be thanked that you who were once the slaves of sin have obeyed from your hearts that type of teaching to which you were appointed; and being set free from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness??19 I speak in these homely figures because of the weakness of your fleshly nature??ust as you once surrendered your faculties into slavery to impurity and to all lawlessness, so now you must surrender your faculties into slavery to righteousness, unto deeds of holiness.

For we know that the Law is spiritual; but as for me, I am a creature of flesh, bought and sold under the dominion of sin. For what I perform I know not; what I practise is not what I intend to do, but what I detest, that I habitually do. read more. If then I habitually do what I do not intend to do, I am consenting to the Law, that it is right. And now it is longer I myself who do the deed, but it is sin which has its home in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, no good thing has its home; for while to will is present with me, to carry out that which is right is not. For the good that I intend to do, I do not; but the evil which I do not; but the evil which I do not intend to do, that I am ever practising. But if I do the very thing I do not intend to do, it is no more I who practise it, but sin which has its home in me. I find, then, this law, that when I intend to do good, evil is ever present with me. For in my inmost self I delight in the law of God; but I find a different law in my bodily faculties, waging war with the law of my will, and taking me prisoner to that law of sin which is in my bodily faculties.

Oh, thank God! it is through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself in my will am in thralldom to the law of God; yet in my animal nature I am in thralldom to the law of sin.

for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death.

For you have not received a spirit of slavery in order that you should once more be afraid; but you have received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry out, "My Father, my dear Father!"

For you have not received a spirit of slavery in order that you should once more be afraid; but you have received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry out, "My Father, my dear Father!" For his Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God;

(The Lord means the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord abides there is freedom.)

Now, however, when you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you are beginning to turn back to those weak and beggarly externalities, eager to be in bondage to them again?

and although my bodily affliction was a trial to you, you did not scoff at it nor spurn me, but welcomed me like an angel of God, like Christ Jesus himself.

Now all this is an allegory, for these women are the two covenants; one from Mount Sinai, which is Hagar bearing children into bondage (for the word Hagar stands for Mt. Sinai in Arabia and represents the present Jerusalem who with her children is in bondage.)

stand firm then, and do not be again entangled in a yoke of bondage.

This is my meaning. Let your steps be guided by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desire of the flesh is against that of the Spirit, and the desire of the Spirit is against that of the flesh, for they two are antagonistic, so that you may not do those things that you wish. read more. But if you are habitually led by the Spirit you are not under law.

But the harvest-fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control; against such there is no law. read more. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and appetites. If we are living by the Spirit, let us also keep step in the Spirit.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is God's gift.

having their understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts.

And might deliver those who through fear of death had been subject to life-long bondage.

For you are not come to a palpable and enkindled fire, nor to gloom and darkness and tempest and the blare of a trumpet and an audible voice. Those who heard that voice entreated that no word more should be spoken to them. read more. For they could not endure that which was enjoined, Even if a wild beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned to death; and so terrible was the scene that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and tremble.

But the man who looks closely into the perfect law??he law of liberty??nd continues looking, this man will be blessed in his deed because he is not a hearer who forgets, but a doer who does.

Live like free men; and yet do not make your freedom a cloak for misconduct, but be the slaves of God.

and we have beheld and do testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. If any man confesses that "Jesus is the Son of God." God is abiding in that man, and he in God. read more. And we do know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love; and he who is abiding in love is abiding in God, and God is abiding in him.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me Because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to the prisoners, And recovery of sight to the blind; To set at liberty those that are bruised,

"So then, if the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed.

"I am the Door. Whoever enters by me shall be saved, and he shall go in and come out and find pasture.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. read more. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once for all; but the life that he lives he is living unto God. Even so count yourselves also to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let not sin rule as king in your mortal body, compelling you to obey its lusts. Do not continue to present any part of your body to sin to be used as a weapon of unrighteousness. On the contrary, be presenting yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and the various parts of your bodies to be used as weapons of righteousness. For sin shall not lord it over you; for you are not under the rule of law, but under the rule of grace. What then? Shall we commit an act of sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not. Do you not know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to any one to obey him, you are his slaves whom you obey; whether it be sin, whose end is death, or obedience, whose end is righteousness? But God be thanked that you who were once the slaves of sin have obeyed from your hearts that type of teaching to which you were appointed; and being set free from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness??19 I speak in these homely figures because of the weakness of your fleshly nature??ust as you once surrendered your faculties into slavery to impurity and to all lawlessness, so now you must surrender your faculties into slavery to righteousness, unto deeds of holiness.

For when you were the slaves of sin, you were under no subjection to righteousness. What harvest-fruit then had you at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. read more. But now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves of God, the harvest-fruit which you are reaping tends to produce holiness, and it ends is life eternal.

Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this slave of death? Oh, thank God! it is through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself in my will am in thralldom to the law of God; yet in my animal nature I am in thralldom to the law of sin.

for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the Law could not do, weakened as it was by flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and on account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; read more. in order that the Law might be fulfilled in us who order our lives not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

stand firm then, and do not be again entangled in a yoke of bondage.