Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ's Righteousness

1. Moreover Elihu answered, 2. “Do you think this to be your right, or do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s,’ 3. That you ask, ‘What advantage will it be to you? What profit shall I have, more than if I had sinned?’ 4. I will answer you, and your companions with you. 5. Look to the heavens, and see. See the skies, which are higher than you. 6. If you have sinned, what effect do you have against him? If your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him? 7. If you are righteous, what do you give him? Or what does he receive from your hand? 8. Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man. 9. “By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty. 10. But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, 11. who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?’ 12. There they cry, but no one gives answer, because of the pride of evil men. 13. Surely God will not hear an empty cry, neither will the Almighty regard it. 14. How much less when you say you don’t see him. The cause is before him, and you wait for him! 15. But now, because he has not visited in his anger, neither does he greatly regard arrogance. 16. Therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk, and he multiplies words without knowledge.” 1. Elihu also continued, and said, 2. “Bear with me a little, and I will show you; for I still have something to say on God’s behalf. 3. I will get my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 4. For truly my words are not false. One who is perfect in knowledge is with you. 5. “Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone. He is mighty in strength of understanding. 6. He doesn’t preserve the life of the wicked, but gives to the afflicted their right. 7. He doesn’t withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne, he sets them forever, and they are exalted. 8. If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions, 9. then he shows them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly. 10. He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity. 11. If they listen and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. 12. But if they don’t listen, they shall perish by the sword; they shall die without knowledge. 13. “But those who are godless in heart lay up anger. They don’t cry for help when he binds them. 14. They die in youth. Their life perishes among the unclean. 15. He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression. 16. Yes, he would have allured you out of distress, into a wide place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness. 17. “But you are full of the judgment of the wicked. Judgment and justice take hold of you. 18. Don’t let riches entice you to wrath, neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside. 19. Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength? 20. Don’t desire the night, when people are cut off in their place. 21. Take heed, don’t regard iniquity; for you have chosen this rather than affliction. 22. Behold, God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him? 23. Who has prescribed his way for him? Or who can say, ‘You have committed unrighteousness?’ 24. “Remember that you magnify his work, whereof men have sung. 25. All men have looked on it. Man sees it afar off. 26. Behold, God is great, and we don’t know him. The number of his years is unsearchable. 27. For he draws up the drops of water, which distill in rain from his vapor, 28. Which the skies pour down and which drop on man abundantly. 29. Yes, can any understand the spreading of the clouds, and the thunderings of his pavilion? 30. Behold, he spreads his light around him. He covers the bottom of the sea. 31. For by these he judges the people. He gives food in abundance. 32. He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. 33. Its noise tells about him, and the livestock also concerning the storm that comes up. 1. “Yes, at this my heart trembles, and is moved out of its place. 2. Hear, oh, hear the noise of his voice, the sound that goes out of his mouth. 3. He sends it out under the whole sky, and his lightning to the ends of the earth. 4. After it a voice roars. He thunders with the voice of his majesty. He doesn’t hold back anything when his voice is heard. 5. God thunders marvelously with his voice. He does great things, which we can’t comprehend. 6. For he says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth;’ likewise to the shower of rain, and to the showers of his mighty rain. 7. He seals up the hand of every man, that all men whom he has made may know it. 8. Then the animals take cover, and remain in their dens. 9. Out of its room comes the storm, and cold out of the north. 10. By the breath of God, ice is given, and the width of the waters is frozen. 11. Yes, he loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of his lightning. 12. It is turned around by his guidance, that they may do whatever he commands them on the surface of the habitable world, 13. Whether it is for correction, or for his land, or for loving kindness, that he causes it to come. 14. “Listen to this, Job. Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. 15. Do you know how God controls them, and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine? 16. Do you know the workings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge? 17. You whose clothing is warm, when the earth is still by reason of the south wind? 18. Can you, with him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a cast metal mirror? 19. Teach us what we shall tell him, for we can’t make our case by reason of darkness. 20. Will it be told him that I would speak? Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up? 21. Now men don’t see the light which is bright in the skies, but the wind passes, and clears them. 22. Out of the north comes golden splendor. With God is awesome majesty. 23. We can’t reach the Almighty. He is exalted in power. In justice and great righteousness, he will not oppress. 24. Therefore men revere him. He doesn’t regard any who are wise of heart.”

1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2. May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? 3. Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4. We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 5. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; 6. knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. 7. For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him; 9. knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him! 10. For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. 11. Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14. For sin will not have dominion 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. Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? 17. But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. 18. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness. 19. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. 20. For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22. But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life. 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 1. Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? 2. For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. 3. So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man. 4. Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God. 5. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring out fruit to death. 6. But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter. 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8. But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9. I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10. The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death; 11. for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12. Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good. 13. Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful. 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15. For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. 16. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. 17. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 18. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. 19. For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. 20. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 21. I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. 22. For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, 23. but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 24. What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, the sin’s law. 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. 3. For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; 4. that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6. For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; 7. because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. 8. Those who are in the flesh can’t please God. 9. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. 10. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11. But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 12. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13. For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. 15. For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; 17. and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. 18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us. 19. For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21. that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. 22. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. 23. Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body. 24. For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? 25. But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience. 26. In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered. 27. He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God. 28. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. 29. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30. Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified. 31. What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32. He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? 33. Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. 34. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36. Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39. nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 1. I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit, 2. that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 3. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh, 4. who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises; 5. of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen. 6. But it is not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel. 7. Neither, because they are Abraham’s offspring, are they all children. But, “your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac.” 8. That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as heirs. 9. For this is a word of promise, “At the appointed time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.” 10. Not only so, but Rebekah also conceived by one, by our father Isaac. 11. For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, 12. it was said to her, “The elder will serve the younger.” 13. Even as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! 15. For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. 17. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18. So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. 19. You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” 20. But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21. Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? 22. What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23. and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, 24. us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? 25. As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.” 26. “It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ There they will be called ‘children of the living God.’” 27. Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved; 28. for He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.” 29. As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.” 30. What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; 31. but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness. 32. Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone; 33. even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.” 1. Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved. 2. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3. For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God. 4. For Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. 5. For Moses writes about the righteousness of the law, “The one who does them will live by them.” 6. But the righteousness which is of faith says this, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down); 7. or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.)” 8. But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart”; that is, the word of faith, which we preach: 9. that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10. For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.” 12. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. 13. For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? 15. And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!” 16. But they didn’t all listen to the glad news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” 17. So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18. But I say, didn’t they hear? Yes, most certainly, “Their sound went out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” 19. But I ask, didn’t Israel know? First Moses says, “I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation, with a nation void of understanding I will make you angry.” 20. Isaiah is very bold, and says, “I was found by those who didn’t seek me. I was revealed to those who didn’t ask for me.” 21. But as to Israel he says, “All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” 1. I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2. God didn’t reject his people, which he foreknew. Or don’t you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel: 3. “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.” 4. But how does God answer him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 7. What then? That which Israel seeks for, that he didn’t obtain, but the chosen ones obtained it, and the rest were hardened. 8. According as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day.” 9. David says, “Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution to them. 10. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see. Bow down their back always.” 11. I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. 12. Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness? 13. For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry; 14. if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. 15. For if the rejection of them is the reconciling of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead? 16. If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches. 17. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; 18. don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. 19. You will say then, “Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.” 20. True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear; 21. for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22. See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 23. They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24. For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? 25. For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, 26. and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 27. This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.” 28. Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. 29. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30. For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, 31. even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. 32. For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. 33. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! 34. “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” 35. “Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?” 36. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.

1. My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you; 2. So as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; 3. Yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding; 4. If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures: 5. then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God. 6. For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. 7. He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity; 8. that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his saints. 9. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. 10. For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 11. Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, 12. to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things; 13. who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; 14. who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil; 15. who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths: 16. To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; 17. who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God: 18. for her house leads down to death, her paths to the departed spirits. 19. None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life: 20. that you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. 21. For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it. 22. But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.