Romans 7

1Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over a person for as long as he lives?

2For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives; but if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.

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

4So then, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of the Messiah, so that you might belong to another—to him who was raised from the dead—in order that we might bear fruit for God.

5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions that came through the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

6But now we have been released from the law, having died to what held us, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

7What then shall we say? Is the law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known coveting if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."

8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came to life,

10and I died, and the commandment that was for life proved to be for death to me.

11For sin, having taken an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13So then, did what is good become death to me? May it never be! Rather, it was sin, so that it might be shown to be sin by producing death in me through what is good, in order that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful.

14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.

15For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want; instead, I do the very thing I hate.

16But if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.

17But now I am no longer the one doing it, but sin dwelling in me.

18For I know that nothing good dwells in me—that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present with me, but the doing of the good is not.

19For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want—this I practice.

20But if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin dwelling in me.

21So I find this law: when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.

22For I delight in the law of God in my inner man,

23But I see another law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.

24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

25Thanks be to God through Jesus the Messiah our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh the law of sin.