Romans, 7

1. As people who are familiar with the Law, brothers, you cannot have forgotten that the law can control a person only during that person's lifetime.

1. Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

2. A married woman, for instance, is bound to her husband by law, as long as he lives, but when her husband dies all her legal obligation to him as husband is ended.

2. For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to [her] husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of [her] husband.

3. So if she were to have relations with another man while her husband was still alive, she would be termed an adulteress; but if her husband dies, her legal obligation comes to an end and if she then has relations with another man, that does not make her an adulteress.

3. So then if, while [her] husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

4. In the same way you, my brothers, through the body of Christ have become dead to the Law and so you are able to belong to someone else, that is, to him who was raised from the dead to make us live fruitfully for God.

4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, [even] to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

5. While we were still living by our natural inclinations, the sinful passions aroused by the Law were working in all parts of our bodies to make us live lives which were fruitful only for death.

5. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

6. But now we are released from the Law, having died to what was binding us, and so we are in a new service, that of the spirit, and not in the old service of a written code.

6. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not [in] the oldness of the letter.

7. What should we say, then? That the Law itself is sin? Out of the question! All the same, if it had not been for the Law, I should not have known what sin was; for instance, I should not have known what it meant to covet if the Law had not said: You are not to covet.

7. What shall we say then? [Is] the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

8. But, once it found the opportunity through that commandment, sin produced in me all kinds of covetousness; as long as there is no Law, sin is dead.

8. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin [was] dead.

9. Once, when there was no Law, I used to be alive; but when the commandment came, sin came to life

9. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

10. and I died. The commandment was meant to bring life but I found it brought death,

10. And the commandment, which [was ordained] to life, I found [to be] unto death.

11. because sin, finding its opportunity by means of the commandment, beguiled me and, by means of it, killed me.

11. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew [me].

12. So then, the Law is holy, and what it commands is holy and upright and good.

12. Wherefore the law [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

13. Does that mean that something good resulted in my dying? Out of the question! But sin, in order to be identified as sin, caused my death through that good thing, and so it is by means of the commandment that sin shows its unbounded sinful power.

13. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

14. We are well aware that the Law is spiritual: but I am a creature of flesh and blood sold as a slave to sin.

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

15. I do not understand my own behaviour; I do not act as I mean to, but I do things that I hate.

15. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

16. While I am acting as I do not want to, I still acknowledge the Law as good,

16. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that [it is] good.

17. so it is not myself acting, but the sin which lives in me.

17. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

18. And really, I know of nothing good living in me -- in my natural self, that is -- for though the will to do what is good is in me, the power to do it is not:

18. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that which is good I find not.

19. the good thing I want to do, I never do; the evil thing which I do not want -- that is what I do.

19. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20. But every time I do what I do not want to, then it is not myself acting, but the sin that lives in me.

20. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

21. So I find this rule: that for me, where I want to do nothing but good, evil is close at my side.

21. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

22. In my inmost self I dearly love God's law,

22. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23. but I see that acting on my body there is a different law which battles against the law in my mind. So I am brought to be a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body.

23. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

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

24. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

25. God -- thanks be to him -- through Jesus Christ our Lord. So it is that I myself with my mind obey the law of God, but in my disordered nature I obey the law of sin.

25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.