Romans 7:1–25

Believers United to Christ

¹Or do you not know, ^abrethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?

²For ^athe married woman is 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.

⁴Therefore, my brethren, 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 ¹the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

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

^7aWhat shall we say then? Is the Law sin? ^bMay it never be! On the contrary, ^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 covet.”

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

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

¹⁰and this commandment, which was ^1ato result in life, proved ²to result in death for me;

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

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

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 effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

The Conflict of Two Natures

¹⁴For we know that the Law is ^aspiritual, but I am of flesh, ^bsold ^1cinto bondage to sin.

¹⁵For what I am doing, ^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 to do, I agree with ^athe Law, confessing that the Law is good.

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

²¹I find then ^athe ¹principle that evil is present in me, the one 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 ¹the members of my body, waging war against the ^blaw of my mind and making me a prisoner ²of ^cthe law of sin which is in my members.

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

^25aThanks 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.