Romans 7
1 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the Law—that the Law has authority over a person only as long as that person lives?
2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband.
3 So then, while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress if she joins herself to another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so she is not an adulteress if she joins herself to another man.
4 So, my brothers, you too died to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another—to him who was raised from the dead—in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, sinful passions, stirred up through the Law, were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death.
6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to what held us captive, so that we serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
7 What shall we say, then? Is the Law sin? Certainly not! But I would not have known sin except through the Law. For I would not have known coveting if the Law had not said, “Do not covet.”
8 But sin seized the opportunity through the commandment and produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the Law, sin is dead.
9 I once lived apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin came to life,
10 and I died. The commandment that was meant to bring life proved to bring death to me.
11 For sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
12 So the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
13 Then did what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin did, so that it might be shown to be sin: through what is good, it produced death in me, so that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.
14 For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am fleshly, sold under sin.
15 For I do not understand what I do. I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the Law that it is good.
17 But as it is, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that lives in me.
18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is right is present in me, but the ability to carry it out is not.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but I practice the evil I do not want.
20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that lives in me.
21 I find, then, this principle: when I want to do what is good, evil is present with me.
22 For in my inner self I delight in the Law of God.
23 But I see another law in my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin that is in my body.
24 What a wretched person I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25 Thanks 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.
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