And God spoke thus: His seed shall be a sojourner in a strange land, and they shall enslave them and evil entreat them four hundred years;
and the nation to which they shall be in bondage will I judge, said God; and after these things they shall come forth and serve me in this place.
knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin.
Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves bondmen for obedience, ye are bondmen to him whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
But thanks be to God, that ye were bondmen of sin, but have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed.
Now, having got your freedom from sin, ye have become bondmen to righteousness.
I speak humanly on account of the weakness of your flesh. For even as ye have yielded your members in bondage to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness.
For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.