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.