Romans 7

CHAPTER 7

Released from the Law

¹Or do you not know, ^abrothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is master over a person as long as he lives?

²For ^athe married woman has been bound by law to her ¹husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law ²concerning the husband.

³So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.

⁴So, my brothers, you also were ^amade to die ^bto the Law ^cthrough the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

⁵For while we were ^ain the flesh, the sinful passions, which were ^baroused by the Law, were at work ^cin our members to bear fruit for death.

⁶But now we have been ^areleased from the Law, having ^bdied to that by which we were constrained, so that we serve in ^cnewness of ^1dthe Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

^7aWhat shall we say then? Is the Law sin? ^bMay it never be! Rather, ^cI would not have come to know sin except ¹through the Law. For I would not have known about ²coveting if the Law had not said, “^dYou shall not ³covet.”

⁸But sin, ^ataking opportunity ^bthrough the commandment, worked out in me ¹coveting of every kind. For ^capart ²from the Law sin is dead.

⁹Now I was once alive apart ¹from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died;

¹⁰and this commandment, which was ^1ato lead to life, was found ²to lead to death for me.

¹¹For sin, ^ataking an opportunity ^bthrough the commandment, ^cdeceived me and through it killed me.

^12aSo, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

The Conflict of Two Natures

¹³Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? ^aMay it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would ¹become utterly sinful.

¹⁴For we know that the Law is ^aspiritual, but I am ^bfleshly, ^chaving been sold ^1dinto bondage under sin.

¹⁵For what I am working out, ^aI do not understand; for I am not practicing ^bwhat I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

¹⁶But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with ^athe Law, that it is good.

¹⁷So now, ^ano longer am I the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me.

¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my ^aflesh; for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not.

¹⁹For ^athe good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.

²⁰But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, ^aI am no longer the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me.

²¹I find then ^athe ¹principle that in me evil is present—in me who wants to do good.

²²For I joyfully concur with the law of God ¹in ^athe inner man,

²³but I see ^aa different law in my members, waging war against the ^blaw of my mind and making me a captive ¹to ^cthe law of sin which is in my members.

²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from ^1athe body of this ^bdeath?

^251aThanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh ^bthe law of sin.