Romans 7

¹Or do you not know , brothers — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives ?

²For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives , but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage .

³Accordingly , she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive . But if her husband dies , she is free from that law , and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress .

⁴Likewise , my brothers , you also have died to the law through the body of Christ , so that you may belong to another , to him who has been raised from the dead , in order that we may bear fruit for God .

⁵For while we were living in the flesh , our sinful passions , aroused by the law , were at work in our members to bear fruit for death .

⁶But now we are released from the law , having died to that which held us captive , so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code .

⁷What then shall we say ? That the law is sin ? By no means ! Yet if it had not been for the law , I would not have known sin . For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said , You shall not covet .

⁸But sin , seizing an opportunity through the commandment , produced in me all kinds of covetousness . For apart from the law , sin lies dead .

⁹I was once alive apart from the law , but when the commandment came , sin came alive and I died .

¹⁰The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me .

¹¹For sin , seizing an opportunity through the commandment , deceived me and through it killed me.

¹²So the law is holy , and the commandment is holy and righteous and good .

¹³Did that which is good , then, bring death to me ? By no means ! It was sin , producing death in me through what is good , in order that sin might be shown to be sin , and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure .

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual , but I am of the flesh , sold under sin .

¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions . For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate .

¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want , I agree with the law , that it is good .

¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it , but sin that dwells within me .

¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me , that is , in my flesh . For I have the desire to do what is right , but not the ability to carry it out.

¹⁹For I do not do the good I want , but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing .

²⁰Now if I do what I do not want , it is no longer I who do it , but sin that dwells within me .

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right , evil lies close at hand .

²²For I delight in the law of God , in my inner being ,

²³but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members .

²⁴Wretched man that I am ! Who will deliver me from this body of death ?

²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord ! So then , I myself serve the law of God with my mind , but with my flesh I serve the law of sin .