For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ver. 23. For the wages of sin] The best largesse or congiary (οψωνιον) that sin gives to his soldiers is death of all sorts. This is the just hire of the least sin. a The Jesuits would persuade us, that some sins against which the law thundereth and lighteneth, are so light in their own nature, Ut factores nec sordidos, nec malos, nec impios, nec Deo exosos reddere possint. (Chemnit. de Theol. Jesuitar.) But as there is the same roundness in a little ball as in a great one; so the same disobedience in a small sin as in a greater. Indeed there is no sin little, because no little God to sin against. Every sin hales hell at the very heels of it.
a αμαρτια ψυχη θανατου, και Θανατος ψυχης Nazianzen