^33 (A)For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: ^(B)I will put my law within them, and I will write it ^(C)on their hearts. ^(D)And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Released from the Law

7 Or do you not know, brothers^[a]—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 ^(A)a 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.^{[b] 3} Accordingly, ^(B)she 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, ^(C)you also have died ^(D)to the law ^(E)through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, ^(F)in 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 ^(G)in our members ^(H)to 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 ^(I)new way of ^(J)the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.^[c]

⁶ But as it is, Christ^[a] has obtained a ministry that is ^(A)as much more excellent than the old as ^(B)the covenant ^(C)he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

³¹ but that Israel ^(A)who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness^{[a] (B)}did not succeed in reaching that law. ³² Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the ^(C)stumbling stone,

³⁹ and by him ^(A)everyone who believes is freed^[a] from everything ^(B)from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Example of Hagar and Sarah

²¹ Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, ^(A)one by a slave woman and ^(B)one by a free woman. ²³ But ^(C)the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while ^(D)the son of the free woman was born through promise. ²⁴ Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two ^(E)covenants. ^(F)One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. ²⁵ Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia;^[a] she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶ But ^(G)the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷ For it is written,

²⁸ Now you,^[b] brothers, ^(I)like Isaac, ^(J)are children of promise. ²⁹ But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh ^(K)persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, ^(L)so also it is now. ³⁰ But what does the Scripture say? ^(M)“Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” ³¹ So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but ^(N)of the free woman.

Christ Has Set Us Free

5 For ^(O)freedom Christ has ^(P)set us free; ^(Q)stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to ^(R)a yoke of ^(S)slavery.