All who sin without having the Law will perish without regard to the Law, and all who sin under the Law will be judged by the Law.

For merely hearing the Law read does not make a man upright in the sight of God; men must obey the Law to be made upright.

When heathen who have no Law instinctively obey what the Law demands, even though they have no law they are a law to themselves,

for they show that what the Law demands is written on their hearts, and their consciences will testify for them, and with their thoughts they will either accuse or perhaps defend themselves,

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

and can understand his will, and from hearing the Law read can tell what is right,

train the foolish, teach the young, since you have knowledge and truth formulated in the Law??21 why, then, will you teach others and refuse to teach yourself? Will you preach against stealing, and yet steal yourself?

Will you boast of the Law and yet dishonor God by breaking it?

Circumcision will help you only if you observe the Law; but if you are a lawbreaker, you might as well be uncircumcised.

So if people who are uncircumcised observe the requirements of the Law, will they not be treated as though they were circumcised?

And if, although they are physically uncircumcised, they obey the Law, they will condemn you, who break the Law, although you have it in writing, and are circumcised.

Now we know that everything the Law says is addressed to those under its authority, so that every mouth may be shut, and the whole world be made accountable to God.

For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin.

But now God's way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.

For we hold that a man is made upright by faith; the observance of the Law has nothing to do with it.

Is this using faith to overthrow law? Far from it. This confirms the Law.

"Happy are they whose violations of the Law have been forgiven, whose sins are covered up!

For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants that the world should belong to him did not come to him or his descendants through the Law, but through the uprightness that resulted from his faith.

For if it is the adherents of the Law who are to possess it, faith is nullified and the promise amounts to nothing!

For the Law only brings down God's wrath; where there is no law, there is no violation of it.

That is why it all turns upon faith; it is to make it a matter of God's favor, so that the promise may hold good for all Abraham's descendants, not only those who are adherents of the Law, but also those who share the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of all of us;

It is true sin was in the world before the Law was given, and men are not charged with sin where there is no law.

Then law slipped in, and multiplied the offense. But greatly as sin multiplied, God's mercy has far surpassed it,

For sin must no longer control you, for you live not under law but under mercy.

What follows, then? Are we to sin, because we live not under law but under mercy? Certainly not!

Do you not know, brothers??or I am speaking to men who know what law is??hat law governs a man only as long as he lives?

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, the marriage law no longer applies to her.

So if she marries another man while her husband is alive, she is called an adulteress, but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and can marry someone else without being an adulteress.

So you, in turn, my brothers, in the body of Christ have become dead as far as the Law is concerned, so that you may belong to another husband, who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For when we were living mere physical lives the sinful passions, awakened by the Law, operated through the organs of our bodies to make us bear fruit for death.

But now the Law no longer applies to us; we have died to what once controlled us, so that we can now serve in the new Spirit, not under the old letter.

Then what shall we conclude? That the Law is sin? Certainly not! Yet, if it had not been for the Law, I should never have learned what sin was; I should not have known what it was to covet if the Law had not said, "You must not covet."

That command gave sin an opening, and it led me to all sorts of covetous ways, for sin is lifeless without law.

I was once alive and without law, but when the command came, sin awoke and then I died;

So the Law itself is holy, and each command is holy, just, and good.

We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am physical, sold into slavery to sin.

But if I do what I do not want to do, I acknowledge that the Law is right.

I find the law to be that I who want to do right am dogged by what is wrong.

My inner nature agrees with the divine law,

but all through my body I see another principle in conflict with the law of my reason, which makes me a prisoner to that law of sin that runs through my body.

Thank God! it is done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So mentally I am a slave to God's law, but physically to the law of sin.

For the life-giving law of the Spirit through Christ Jesus has freed you from the Law of sin and death.

For though it was impossible for the Law to do it, hampered as it was by our physical limitations, God, by sending his own Son in our sinful physical form, as a sin-offering, put his condemnation upon sin through his physical nature,

so that the requirement of the Law might be fully met in our case, since we live not on the physical but on the spiritual plane.

For to be physically minded means hostility to God, for it refuses to obey God's law, indeed it cannot obey it.

while Israel, straining after a law that should bring uprightness, did not come up to it.

For Christ marks the termination of law, so that now anyone who has faith may attain uprightness.

Moses said that anyone who carried out the uprightness the Law prescribed would find life through it.

Owe nobody anything??xcept the duty of mutual love, for whoever loves his fellow-men has fully satisfied the Law.

Love never wrongs a neighbor, and so love fully satisfies the Law.