Romans 7

1 Or are you unaware, brothers — for I am speaking to people who know law — that the law is lord over a person for as long a time as he lives? [a] 2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives; but if the husband dies, she has been released from the law of the husband. [c] 3 So then, while the husband is living she will be called an adulteress if she becomes another man’s; but if the husband dies she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress by becoming another man’s.

4 So, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might become another’s — his who was raised from the dead — so that we might bear fruit to God. [d] 5 For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins that come through the law were at work in our limbs to bear fruit for death; [e] 6 but now we have been released from the law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter. [g]

7 What then shall we say? Is the law sin? May it never be! But I would not have known sin except through law; for I would not have known desire if the law had not said, “You are not to set your desire.” [h] 8 But sin, taking its opportunity through the command, produced in me every desire; for apart from law sin is dead. [i]

9 And I was once alive apart from law; but when the command came, sin came back to life, 10 and I died; and the very command that was for life, this was found for me to be for death. 11 For sin, taking its opportunity through the command, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the command holy and righteous and good.

13 Then did the good become death to me? May it never be! But sin did — so that it might be shown to be sin, working death in me through what is good; so that through the command sin might become sinful beyond all measure. [j]

14 For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold under sin. 15 For what I carry out, I do not know; for it is not what I want that I practice, but what I hate, this I do. [k] † 16 But if what I do not want, this I do, I agree with the law that it is good. [l] 17 So now it is no longer I who carry it out, but the sin that dwells in me.

18 For I know that good does not dwell in me — that is, in my flesh; for the wanting lies ready at hand for me, but the carrying out of the good does not. [m] 19 For the good that I want, I do not do; but the evil I do not want, this I practice. 20 And if what I do not want, this I do, it is no longer I who carry it out, but the sin that dwells in me.

21 So I find the law: that for me, wanting to do the good, evil lies ready at hand. 22 For I delight together with the law of God according to the inner man, [n] 23 but I see another law in my limbs, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive by the law of sin that is in my limbs.

24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me out of this body of death? [o] 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. [p]