All who sin without having the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

For merely hearing the law read does not make men upright with God, but men who practice the law will be recognized as upright.

Indeed, when heathen people who have no law instinctively do what the law demands, although they have no law, they are a law to themselves,

for they show that the deeds the law demands are written on their hearts, because their consciences will testify for them, and their inner thoughts will either accuse or defend them,

Now if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on law, and boast about God,

and understand His will, and by being instructed in the law can know the things that excel,

a tutor of the foolish, a teacher of the young, since you have a knowledge of the truth as formulated in the law --

You who boast about the law, do you by breaking it dishonor God?

Now circumcision benefits you only if you practice the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision is no better than uncircumcision.

So if the uncircumcised heathen man observes the just demands of the law, will he not be counted as though he were a Jew?

And shall not the heathen man who is physically uncircumcised, and yet observes the law, condemn you who have the letter of the law and are physically circumcised, and yet break the law?

Now we know that everything the law says is spoken to those who are under its authority, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world be held responsible to God.

Because no human creature can be brought into right standing with God by observing the law. For all the law can do is to make men conscious of sin.

But now God's way of giving men right standing with Himself has come to light; a way without connection with the law, and yet a way to which the law and the prophets testify.

For we hold that a man is brought into right standing with God by faith, that observance of the law has no connection with it.

Do we then through faith make null and void the law? Not at all; instead, we confirm it.

For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants, that he should own the world, was not conditioned on the law, but on the right standing he had with God through faith.

For if the law party is to possess the world, then faith has been nullified and the promise has been made null and void.

For the law results in wrath alone, but where there is no law, there can be no violation of it.

So it is conditioned on faith, that it might be in accordance with God's unmerited favor, so that the promise might be in force for all the descendants of Abraham, not only for those who belong to the law party but also for those who belong to the faith group of Abraham. He is the father of us all,

Certainly sin was in the world before the law was given, but it is not charged to men's account where there is no law.

Then law crept in to multiply the offense. Though sin has multiplied, yet God's favor has surpassed it and overflowed,

For sin must not any longer exert its mastery over you, for now you are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor.

What are we to conclude? Are we to keep on sinning, because we are not living as slaves to law but as subjects to God's favor? Never!

Do you not know, brothers -- for I speak to those who are acquainted with the law -- that the law can press its claim over a man only so 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 freed from the marriage bond.

So, my brothers, you too in the body of Christ have ended your relation to the law, so that you may be married to another husband, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death.

But now we have been freed from our relation to the law; we have ended our relation to that by which we once were held in bonds, so that we may serve in a new spiritual way and not in the old literalistic way.

What are we then to conclude? Is the law sin? Of course not! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have learned what sin was, for I should not have known what an evil desire was, if the law had not said, "You must not have an evil desire."

Sin found its rallying point in that command and stirred within me every sort of evil desire, for without law, sin is lifeless.

I was once alive when I had no connection with the law, but when the command came, sin revived, and then I died;

So the law itself is holy, and its specific commands are holy, right, and good.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made of flesh that is frail, sold into slavery to sin.

But if I am always doing what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is right.

So I find this law: When I want to do right, the wrong is always in my way.

For in accordance with my better inner nature I approve God's law,

Thank God! It has been done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my higher nature I am a slave to the law of God, but in my lower nature, to the law of sin.

For though the law could not do it, because it was made helpless through our lower nature, yet God, by sending His own Son in a body similar to that of our lower nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, passed sentence upon sin through His body,

so that the requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live by the standard set by our lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit.

Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it.

I am telling the truth as a Christian man. I am telling no lie, because my conscience enlightened by the Holy Spirit is bearing me witness to this fact,

For they are Israelites; to them belong the privileges of sonship, God's glorious presence, the special covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, the promises,

while Israel, though ever in pursuit of a law that would bring right standing, did not attain to it.

For Christ has put an end to law as a way to right standing for everyone who puts his trust in Him.

For Moses says of the law-way to right standing with God that whoever can perform the law will live by it.

Stop owing anybody anything, except the obligation to love one another, for whoever practices loving others has perfectly satisfied the law.

Love never does a wrong to one's neighbor; so love is the perfect satisfaction of the law.