1 God was really good to us even though we did bad things. So what do you reckon? Maybe we should keep on doing bad things, so that people can see how good God is. 2-4 No way. Just think about that baptism ceremony. Church leaders baptised us to show that we joined up with Jesus Christ. And you know that Jesus died, and they buried him, but God, our really great father, made him alive again. And we joined up to him, so we can’t think about doing bad things any more. It is like we died to those bad things. And it is like God makes us alive again to do good things. That baptism ceremony was to show that we died to bad things and got buried, just like Jesus Christ died and got buried, but God gave us new life too, just like Jesus came back to life. If we live in a new way like that, we will not go wrong any more. So if we start to think about doing something bad, we have to remember that we are dead to doing bad things, and so we can’t do it. We have to live in a new way like that all the time.[a]

5 We joined up with Jesus Christ and it is like we die, just like he died, and then it is like we come back to life, just like he came back to life. 6 We know that they nailed Jesus Christ to that cross, and it was like they nailed a part of us there too, that old part of us that makes us do wrong things all the time. It got nailed to that cross with Jesus, and it is dead. So now it doesn’t have any power over us. It can’t make us do bad things. 7 You know, if something is dead, it can’t do anything. Well, that bad old part of us is dead now, so it can’t make us do bad things any more.

8 It is like we died, just like Jesus Christ died, and now we know that we will also live again with him. 9 He came back to life after he died, so we are sure that he can never die again. Nothing can kill him ever again. 10 He died once and took the payback for the bad things that people do, but God made him alive again, and now he lives and works for God. 11 Well, we have to think about ourselves in that same way. We joined up with Jesus Christ, so now, if we start to think that we want to do something bad, we have to remember this, that bad part of us died, just like Jesus died, so we can’t do anything bad. We have to think about living God’s way, so we live and work for him, just like Jesus Christ does.

12-14 So don’t just think about the law that comes from Moses. It talks about the bad things people do. If you just think about that, you will want to do those same bad things yourself. Then that law will be your boss, and your bodies will make you want to do bad things too. Don’t be like that. Don’t let any part of your body be your boss. Don’t do whatever it wants. Instead, you have to give your bodies to God and let him use you to do good things. You have to think about him all the time, and remember that he is very good to you, and that he made you alive again in a new way. If you think like that, you will not want to do anything bad. God is really good to you. That law is not your boss any more.

15 But maybe you think like this, “We can do whatever bad things we want to do, because that law is not our boss any more and God will be good to us anyway.” No way. Don’t think like that. 16 You know that if you always do whatever another person wants, you make that person your boss. So if you do bad things all the time, you make those bad things your boss, and in the end you will die. But if you do whatever God wants all the time, you make him your boss, and in the end he will say that you are really good. 17 Actually, you used to do bad things all the time, but now you have made God your boss, and you really want to do whatever he wants. I thank God for that. 18 You are free now. You don’t have to do those bad things any more. You have got a new good boss now, and you have to do good things all the time. 19 I’m trying to say this in a way that you will really understand. In the past you used your body for wrong things. It was like those bad things were your boss, so you kept on doing more bad things. But now you have to use your bodies for good things. You work for God, and he gets you to do good things so that you will be his special people.

20 In those days you worked for the wrong boss. You made those bad things your boss. So you did bad things, and you never wanted to do good things. 21 And what did you get after you did bad things? You got shame, that’s all. And you know that people that do those bad things have to die. 22 So now you can’t think about doing bad things any more, but instead, you have to only think about working for God. Then you will do good things, and then you will be God’s special people and you will live with him for ever. 23 That’s how it is. If we do bad things, we will get our pay for doing those things. We will die. That’s all the pay we will get. But if we join up to our leader, Jesus Christ, God will give us properly good life. We will live with him for ever.

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