Released from the Law

1 Or do you not know, brothers¹—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For ^ea married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.² 3 Accordingly, ^fshe will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

4 Likewise, my brothers, ^gyou also have died ^hto the law ⁱthrough the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, ^jin order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work ^kin our members ^lto bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the ^mnew way of ⁿthe Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.¹