7Brothers and sisters, I am speaking to you who know the law. Don’t you know that the law has authority over us only as long as we are alive? ²For example, by law a married woman is joined to her husband as long as he is living. But suppose her husband dies. Then the marriage law no longer applies to her. ³But suppose that married woman gets married again while her husband is still alive. Then she is called a woman who commits adultery. But suppose her husband dies. Then she is free from that law. She is not guilty of adultery even if she marries another man.

⁴My brothers and sisters, when Christ died you also died as far as the law is concerned. Then it became possible for you to belong to him. He was raised from the dead. Now our lives can be useful to God. ⁵Our sinful nature used to control us. The law stirred up sinful longings in our bodies. So the things we did resulted in death.

⁶But now we have died to what used to control us. We have been set free from the law. Now we serve in the new way of the Holy Spirit. We no longer serve in the old way of the written law.

Struggling With Sin

⁷What should we say then? That the law is sin? Not at all! I wouldn’t have known what sin was unless the law had told me. The law said, “Do not want what belongs to other people.” If the law hadn’t said that, I would not have known what it was like to want what belonged to others. ⁸But the commandment gave sin an opportunity. Sin caused me to want all kinds of things that belonged to others. No one can break a law that doesn’t exist.

⁹Before I knew about the law, I was alive. But then the commandment came. Sin came to life, and I died. ¹⁰I found that the commandment that was supposed to bring life actually brought death. ¹¹When the commandment gave sin the opportunity, sin tricked me. It used the commandment to put me to death. ¹²So the law is holy. The commandment also is holy and right and good.

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