Romans 6:21

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death.

King James Version (1611)
What fruit had yee then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

King James Version
What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

English Standard Version
But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

New American Standard Bible
Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.

New Century Version
You did evil things, and now you are ashamed of them. Those things only bring death.

Amplified Bible
So what benefit did you get at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? [None!] For the outcome of those things is death!

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.

Legacy Standard Bible
Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Berean Standard Bible
What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death.

Contemporary English Version
But what good did you receive from the things you did? All you have to show for them is your shame, and they lead to death.

Complete Jewish Bible
but what benefit did you derive from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end result of those things was death.

Darby Translation
What fruit therefore had ye *then* in the things of which ye are *now* ashamed? for the end of *them* [is] death.

Easy-to-Read Version
You did evil things, and now you are ashamed of what you did. Did those things help you? No, they only brought death.

Geneva Bible (1587)
What fruit had ye then in those things, whereof ye are nowe ashamed? For the ende of those things is death.

George Lamsa Translation
What kind of fruit did you have then, in the things of which you are now ashamed? for the end thereof is death.

Good News Translation
What did you gain from doing the things that you are now ashamed of? The result of those things is death!

Lexham English Bible
Therefore what sort of fruit did you have then, about which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Literal Translation
Therefore what fruit did you have then in the things over which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

American Standard Version
What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

Bible in Basic English
What fruit had you at that time in the things which are now a shame to you? for the end of such things is death.

Hebrew Names Version
What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

International Standard Version
What benefit did you get from doing those things you are now ashamed of? For those things resulted in death.Romans 1:32; 7:5;">[xr]

Etheridge Translation
And what product [fn] had you then from that of which to-day you are ashamed? For the end of it is death.

Murdock Translation
And what harvest had ye then, in that of which ye are now ashamed? For the result thereof is death.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
What fruite had ye then in those thynges, wherof ye are nowe ashamed? For the ende of those thynges, is death.

English Revised Version
What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

World English Bible
What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
What fruit had ye then from those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Weymouth's New Testament
At that time, then, what benefit did you get from conduct which you now regard with shame? Why, such things finally result in death.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Therfor what fruyt hadden ye thanne in tho thingis, in whiche ye schamen now? For the ende of hem is deth.

Update Bible Version
What fruit then did you have at that time in the things whereof you are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

Webster's Bible Translation
What fruit had ye then in those things of which ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things [is] death.

New English Translation
So what benefit did you then reap from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death.

New King James Version
What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

New Living Translation
And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.

New Life Bible
What good did you get from the things you are ashamed of now? Those things bring death.

New Revised Standard
So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
What fruit, therefore, had ye then - in things for which ye now are taking shame to yourselves? For, the end of those things, is death.

Douay-Rheims Bible
What fruit therefore had you then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death.

Revised Standard Version
But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
What frute had ye then in tho thinges wher of ye are now ashamed. For the ende of tho thynges is deeth.

Young's Literal Translation
what fruit, therefore, were ye having then, in the things of which ye are now ashamed? for the end of those [is] death.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
What frute had ye at that tyme in those thinges, wherof ye are now ashamed? For the ende of soch thinges is death.

Mace New Testament (1729)
what benefit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? since they terminated all in death.

Simplified Cowboy Version
What good did you get out of doin' the stuff that now you wish you wouldn't have done? Livin' that way is a trail straight to hell!

Contextual Overview

¹So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land! That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God. So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. ⁴When Death Becomes Life So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land! That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God. So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. ⁵When Death Becomes Life So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land! That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. ⁶Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did. ¹²That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God. ¹⁵So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! ¹⁹ I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? ²⁰As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. ²²But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

What: Romans 7:5, Proverbs 1:31, Proverbs 5:10-13, Proverbs 9:17, Proverbs 9:18, Isaiah 3:10, Jeremiah 17:10, Jeremiah 44:20-24, Galatians 6:7, Galatians 6:8

whereof: Ezra 9:6, Job 40:4, Job 42:6, Jeremiah 3:3, Jeremiah 8:12, Jeremiah 31:19, Ezekiel 16:61-63, Ezekiel 36:31, Ezekiel 36:32, Ezekiel 43:11, Daniel 9:7, Daniel 9:8, Daniel 12:2, Luke 15:17-21, 2 Corinthians 7:11, 1 John 2:28

for the: Romans 6:23, Romans 1:32, Deuteronomy 17:6, Deuteronomy 21:22, 2 Samuel 12:5-7, 1 Kings 2:26, Psalms 73:17, Proverbs 14:12, Proverbs 16:25, Philippians 3:19, Hebrews 6:8, Hebrews 10:29, James 1:15, James 5:20, 1 Peter 4:17, Revelation 16:6, Revelation 20:14

Reciprocal: Genesis 37:26 - What profit Genesis 38:23 - lest we Exodus 32:25 - shame Numbers 5:27 - if she be defiled Deuteronomy 6:24 - for our good 1 Kings 18:21 - answered Job 33:27 - it profited Psalms 58:11 - a reward for Psalms 107:10 - bound Psalms 120:3 - What shall Proverbs 5:11 - thou Proverbs 13:15 - but Proverbs 23:18 - surely Proverbs 23:32 - At Proverbs 31:31 - of the Ecclesiastes 7:2 - that Isaiah 1:29 - ashamed Jeremiah 2:26 - the thief Jeremiah 3:25 - lie down Jeremiah 12:13 - put Ezekiel 14:6 - turn Ezekiel 16:52 - bear thine Ezekiel 43:10 - that they Hosea 9:10 - separated Habakkuk 2:18 - profiteth Haggai 2:15 - consider Mark 8:36 - profit Luke 18:30 - manifold more Romans 6:22 - and the end Romans 8:6 - to be carnally minded Romans 8:13 - ye live 2 Corinthians 4:2 - dishonesty Ephesians 5:11 - unfruitful

Cross-References

Psalms 145:16
Generous to a fault, you lavish your favor on all creatures.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

What fruit had ye then in those things?.... That is, what profit, pleasure, satisfaction, or comfort, had ye in the commission of sin? Sin yields no real profit to the servants of it. If a man, by sinful practices, could amass together the riches of the Indies, or gain the whole world, yet if his soul is lost thereby, what advantage would it be to him? he would be infinitely the loser by it; nor would all his wealth and riches profit him in the day of God's wrath and righteous judgment: nor is there any true pleasure in sin; persons may imagine within themselves they enjoy a real pleasure whilst they are serving divers lusts; but this is but imaginary, it is not real; and this imaginary pleasure is but for a season; it issues in bitterness and death: nor is there any satisfaction in it; when men have endeavoured to gratify their carnal lusts and sensual appetites in every way that can be devised, they still remain as they were; nor can they reflect with real satisfaction, and without some slinging remorse, upon the methods they have pursued to gain it: nor is there any true honour in sin, nothing but what is scandalous and disgraceful to human nature; shame, sooner or later, is the fruit of sin:

whereof ye are now ashamed; some men may be indeed for the present so hardened as not to blush and be ashamed at the commission of the vilest sins; such are they who have no sense of sin, have no fear of God, or regard to men; and so sin openly, and without any guise, glory in it, and make their boast of it: but when persons are wrought upon by the Spirit of God, they are ashamed of sin; which might be exemplified in the case of Adam and Eve, of Ephraim, of the prodigal son, and of the poor publican; the reason is, because light is struck into their hearts; and this makes manifest the odious and detestable nature of sin; sin is hereby seen in its own proper colours, as exceeding sinful, loathsome, and abominable: besides, the grace and goodness of God are discovered in the forgiveness of it; and the glory of God's purity and holiness, and the beauty and loveliness of Christ, are discerned by such persons; all which have a tendency to make them ashamed of sin, out of love with it, and to abhor it: and a good thing it is to be brought to be ashamed of sin here; for such who are not ashamed of it here, shall be brought to everlasting shame and confusion hereafter. Nay, this is not all; not only shame will be the fruit of sin, but it will also issue in death:

for the, end of those things is death: the profit, the reward, and wages of them is death: sin not only brings a spiritual or moral death on persons, on all the powers and faculties of their souls, and is followed with a corporeal death; but if grace prevent not, it will end in an eternal one; for however right and good the ways of sin may seem to the carnal mind, "the end thereof are the ways of death" (#Pr 14:12 16:25).

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

What fruit, then ... - What reward, or what advantage. This is an argument drawn from the experience of Christians respecting the indulgence of sinful passions. The question discussed throughout this chapter is, whether the gospel plan of justification by faith leads to indulgence in sin? The argument here is drawn from the past experience which Christians have had in the ways of transgression. They have tried it; they know its effects; they have tasted its bitterness; they have reaped its fruits. It is implied here that having once experienced these effects, and knowing the tendency of sin, they will not indulge in it now; compare Romans 7:5.

Whereof ye are now ashamed - Having seen their nature and tendency, you are now ashamed of them; compare Romans 1:0; Ephesians 5:12, “For it is a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret,” 2 Corinthians 4:2; Jude 1:13; Philippians 3:19.

For the end - The tendency; the result. Those things lead to death.

Is death - Note, Romans 6:22.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Romans 6:21. What fruit had ye then in those things — God designs that every man shall reap benefit by his service. What benefit have ye derived from the service of sin?

Whereof ye are now ashamed? — Ye blush to remember your former life. It was scandalous to yourselves, injurious to others, and highly provoking to God.

The end of those things is death. — Whatever sin may promise of pleasure or advantage, the end to which it necessarily tends is the destruction of body and soul.