Romans 12:1

Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ¹  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ²  – which is your reasonable service.

Ps 19:14; Ps 50:13,14; Ps 69:30,31; Ps 116:12; Isa 56:7; Jer 6:20; Ho 14:2; Lu 7:47; Ro 2:4; Ro 6:13,16,19; Ro 9:23; Ro 11:30,31; Ro 12:2; Ro 15:16; Ro 15:30; 1Co 1:10; 1Co 5:7,8; 1Co 6:13-20; 2Co 4:1; 2Co 4:16; 2Co 5:14,15; 2Co 5:20; 2Co 6:1; 2Co 10:1; Eph 2:4-10; Eph 4:1; Eph 5:10; Php 1:20; Php 2:1-5; Php 2:17; Php 4:18; 1Th 4:1,10; 1Th 5:12; 1Ti 2:3; 1Ti 5:4; Tit 3:4-8; Heb 10:20-22; Heb 10:22; Heb 13:15,16; Heb 13:22; 1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:5,20; 1Pe 2:10-12

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

² tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.

sn Taken as predicate adjectives, the terms alive, holy, and pleasing are showing how unusual is the sacrifice that believers can now offer, for OT sacrifices were dead. As has often been quipped about this text, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.”