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]

¹⁹ For through the law I ^(A)died to the law, so that I might ^(B)live to God. ²⁰ I have been ^(C)crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives ^(D)in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, ^(E)who loved me and ^(F)gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not nullify the grace of God, for ^(G)if righteousness^[a] were through the law, ^(H)then Christ died for no purpose.