Romans 8:2-14

2If you belong to Christ Jesus, God's Spirit has given you a new life. God's Spirit now rules in your life and he has made you free. Sin and death no longer have authority over you.

3The Law that God gave to Moses could not make us free like that. We were too weak to obey his Law because we are human. But God has done what his Law could not do. He sent his own Son to become a person like us. His human body was like the body of people who do wrong things. God's Son died as a sacrifice to take away the punishment for our sins. In that way, God destroyed the power of sin over people who are weak and human.

4God did this so that we could become right with him. God's Law showed us how to be right with him. And now we can be right with God, if we live with God's Spirit as our guide. We do not do what our weak human thoughts want us to do.

5Some people do what their weak human thoughts want them to do. They think about the things that will make themselves happy. But people who live with God's Spirit as their guide think about what will make God's Spirit happy.

6People who let their human thoughts rule them will die. But people who think about what God's Spirit wants will have life with God. They will have peace inside themselves.

7If our weak human thoughts rule us, we become God's enemies. People like that do not want to obey God's Law. They are not even able to obey it.

8People who let their human thoughts rule them cannot make God happy.

9But you are not like that. You no longer obey your weak human thoughts. Instead, you obey God's Spirit as your guide. That is true if God's Spirit is really living in you. But if anyone does not have Christ's Spirit in them, that person does not belong to Christ.

10But, if Christ lives in you, you have a new life because of his Spirit. Your body will die one day because of the power of sin. But your spirit lives because Christ has made you right with God.

11God raised Jesus, to make him alive again after his death. Now God's Spirit lives in you. So God, who raised Christ from death, will also cause your human bodies to live again. He will do that by his Spirit who lives in you.

12So, my Christian friends, we must not obey what our weak human thoughts tell us to do. We no longer have to live like that.

13If you agree to live in that way, you will die. Instead, you should let God's Spirit help you with his power. Then you can stop doing the wrong things that your bodies want to do. As a result, you will have life with God.

14All those people who live with God's Spirit as their guide are God's children.