¶ What shall we say then? is the law sin? God forbid: but I knew not what sin meant but by the law. For I had not known what lust had meant, except the law had said, thou shalt not lust.
For what the law could not do in as much as it was weak because of the flesh: that performed God, and sent his son in the similitude of sinful flesh, and by sin damned sin in the flesh:
know that a man is not justified by the deeds of the law: but by the faith of Iesus Christ: and we have believed on Iesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the deeds of the law: because that no flesh shall be justified by the deeds of the law:
Is the law then against the promise of God? God forbid. If there had been a law given which could have given life: then no doubt righteousness should have come by the law:
¶ For the law which hath but the shadow of good things to come, and not the things in their own fashion, can never with the sacrifices which they offer year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
but without faith it is unpossible to please him. For he that cometh to God, must believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him.
that by two immutable things (in which it was unpossible that God should lie) we might have perfect consolation, which have fled, for to hold fast the hope that is set before our faces,
If now therefore perfection came by the priesthood of the levites (for under that priesthood the people received the law) what needed it furthermore that another priest should rise, after the order of Melchisedech, and not after the order of Aaron?
which was a similitude of this present time, in which gifts and sacrifices are offered, which can not make them that minister perfect, as pertaining to the conscience,