6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves 1 as obedient slaves, 2 you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? 3 6:17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed 4 from the heart that pattern 5 of teaching you were entrusted to, 6:18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 6:19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) 6 For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.
6:21 So what benefit 7 did you then reap 8 from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 6:22 But now, freed 9 from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit 10 leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life.
1 tn Grk “to whom you present yourselves.”
2 tn Grk “as slaves for obedience.” See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.
3 tn Grk “either of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”
4 tn Grk “you were slaves of sin but you obeyed.”
5 tn Or “type, form.”
6 tn Or “because of your natural limitations” (NRSV).
7 tn Grk “fruit.”
8 tn Grk “have,” in a tense emphasizing their customary condition in the past.
9 tn The two aorist participles translated “freed” and “enslaved” are causal in force; their full force is something like “But now, since you have become freed from sin and since you have become enslaved to God….”
10 tn Grk “fruit.”