Romans 7

1 Surely, friends, you know (for I am speaking to people who know what Law means) that Law has power over a person only as long as they lives.

Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know law), that the law has authority over someone only as long as he lives?

2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband while he is living; but, if her husband dies, she is set free from the law that bound her to him.

For example, a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if the man should die, she is released from the law about the husband.

3 If, then, during her husband’s lifetime, she unites herself to another man, she will be called an adulteress; but, if her husband dies, the law has no further hold on her, nor, if she unites herself to another man, is she an adulteress.

So then, if she should ‘marry’ another man while her husband is living, she will be labeled an adulteress; but if the husband should die, she is free from that law, not being an adulteress if she marries another man.

4 And so with you, my friends; as far as the Law was concerned, you underwent death in the crucified body of the Christ, so that you might be united to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that our lives might bear fruit for God.

Therefore, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of the Christ so as to belong to another—to Him who was raised from the dead—so that we should produce fruit to God.

5 When we were living merely earthly lives, our sinful passions, aroused by the Law, were active in every part of our bodies, with the result that our lives bore fruit for death.

Because when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our body parts to produce fruit to death.

6 But now we are set free from the Law, because we are dead to that which once kept us under restraint; and so we serve under new, spiritual conditions, and not under old, written regulations.

But now we have been released from the law, having died to what was gripping us, so as to slave in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.

7 What are we to say, then? That Law and sin are the same thing? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, I should not have learned what sin is, had not it been for Law. If the Law did not say ‘You must not covet,’ I should not know what it is to covet.

So what shall we say then? Is the law sin? Of course not! Indeed, I would not have come to know the sin except through the law: I would not have recognized covetousness if the law had not said, “You must not covet.”

8 But sin took advantage of the commandment to arouse in me every form of covetousness, for where there is no consciousness of Law sin shows no sign of life.

But the sin, grasping an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. Now without the law sin is dead.

9 There was a time when I myself, unconscious of Law, was alive; but when the commandment was brought home to me, sin sprang into life, while I died!

Once upon a time, without law, I was actually ‘alive’; but when the commandment came, the sin came to life and I died.

10 The commandment that should have meant life I found to result in death!

Yes, the commandment that was to bring me life turned out to bring death.

11 Sin took advantage of the commandment to deceive me, and used it to bring about my death.

Because the sin, grasping an opportunity through the commandment, completely deceived me, and used it to ‘kill’ me.

12 And so the Law is holy, and each commandment is also holy, and just, and good.

So then, the law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13 Did, then, a thing, which in itself was good, involve death in my case? Heaven forbid! It was sin that involved death; so that, by its use of what I regarded as good to bring about my death, its true nature might appear; and in this way the commandment showed how intensely sinful sin is.

So has what is good become death to me? Of course not! Rather the sin, that it might be exposed as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment the sin might become extremely sinful.

14 We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am earthly – sold into slavery to sin.

We know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been ‘sold’ under sin

15 I do not understand my own actions. For I am so far from habitually doing what I want to do, that I find myself doing the thing that I hate.

—you see, I do not understand what I am doing: I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate!

16 But when I do what I want not to do, I am admitting that the Law is right.

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

17 This being so, the action is no longer my own, but is done by the sin which is within me.

So now it is no longer I who am doing it, but the sin dwelling in me.

18 I know that there is nothing good in me – I mean in my earthly nature. For, although it is easy for me to want to do right, to act rightly is not easy.

Further, I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; because to will is present with me, but I do not find how to perform the good.

19 I fail to do the good thing that I want to do, but the bad thing that I want not to do – that I habitually do.

Because I do not do the good that I want to do; rather I practice the evil that I do not want to do.

20 But, when I do the thing that I want not to do, the action is no longer my own, but is done by the sin which is within me.

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin dwelling in me.

21 This, then, is the law that I find – when I want to do right, wrong presents itself!

So I find this ‘law’: when I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

22 At heart I delight in the Law of God;

I joyfully agree with God's law according to the inner man,

23 but throughout my body I see a different law, one which is in conflict with the law accepted by my reason, and which endeavors to make me a prisoner to that law of sin which exists throughout my body.

but I see a different ‘law’ in my body parts, warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of the sin that is in my body parts.

24 Miserable man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body that is bringing me to this death?

What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

25 Thank God, there is deliverance through Jesus Christ, our Lord! Well then, for myself, with my reason I serve the Law of God, but with my earthly nature the Law of sin.

I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve God's law, but with the flesh, sin's law.