Saturday of the 4th week

The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 93

Brethren, having been freed from sin, you have become slaves to righteousness. I speak according to human reasoning, for the sake of the weakness of your flesh. As you have given up your members to be slaves to uncleanness and iniquity to lawless works, so now present your members to be slaves of righteousness to holy works. For when you were slaves to sin, then you were free from righteousness. What fruit did you have then? Such works as you yourselves are now ashamed of, because their end is death. But now, when you have been freed from sin and have become servants of God, your fruit is holiness, and the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:18–23

Week 4

The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 94

Brethren, do you not know (for I say to those who know the law) that the law has power over a man while he lives? A married woman is bound by law to a living husband; and if her husband dies, she is exempt from the law of marriage. Therefore, if she marries another while her husband is alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, and she will not be an adulteress if she marries another husband. In the same way, my brethren, you also died to the law in the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, who rose from the dead, that we might bear fruit to God. For when we lived according to the flesh, then the sinful passions revealed by the law worked in our members to bring forth the fruit of death; but now, having died to the law by which we were bound, we have been freed from it, that we may serve God in the renewing of the spirit, and not according to the old letter. What shall we say? Is it possible that the law is a sin? Nohow. But I knew sin only by the law. For I would not understand the desire, if the law did not say: Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking the pretext from the commandment, produced in me every desire: for without the law sin is dead. I once lived without law; but when the commandment came, sin came to life, and I died; and thus the commandment given for life served me to death, because sin, taking the pretext of the commandment, deceived me and put me to death by it. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good. And so, has good become deadly to me? Nohow; but sin, which turns out to be sin, because it causes me death by means of good, so that sin becomes exceedingly sinful by means of the commandment.

Romans 7:1–13

Monday 3 weeks

The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 95

Brethren, we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold to sin. For I do not understand what I am doing: because I do not do what I want, but what I hate, I do. But if I do what I do not want, then I agree with the law that it is good, and therefore it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the desire for good is in me, but I do not find it to do it. I do not do the good that I want, but I do the evil that I do not want. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me. Therefore I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is attached to me. For according to the inner man I find pleasure in the law of God; but in my members I see another law, which is contrary to the law of my mind, and which makes me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Poor man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank my God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore I serve the law of God with my mind, and the law of sin in my flesh. Therefore there is no condemnation now to those who in Christ Jesus live not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 7:14–8:2

Tuesday 3 weeks

The Epistle to the Romans, conceived 96a