1
Or do you not know, brothers (for I speak to those knowing the law), that the law rules over a man as long as he lives?
2
For the woman who is under a man has been bound by law to the living husband. But if the husband should die, she is released from the law of the husband.
3
So then, while the husband is living, she will be called an adulteress if she becomes [married] to a different husband; but if her husband should die, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, having become [married] to a different husband.
4
Therefore, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead, so that we might bear fruit to God.
5
For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.
6
But now we were released from the law, having died in [that] to which we were held fast, so that we should serve as slaves in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
7
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known lust unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."
8
But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of lust. For apart from the law sin [was] dead.
9
For I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, but I died.
10
And the commandment, which [was] to [bring] life, I found to [bring] death.
11
For sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, deceived me, and by it, killed me.
12
Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good.
13
Then has that which is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through that which is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.
14
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, having been sold under sin.
15
For what I am doing, I do not know. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, this I do.
16
But if I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that [it is] good.
17
But now [it is] no longer I [who] am doing it, but the sin dwelling in me.
18
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but [how] to do the good, I do not find.
19
For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, this I practice.
20
But if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I [who] am doing it, but the sin dwelling in me.
21
Therefore I find this law, that [when] I wish to do the right [thing], that evil is present with me.
22
For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
23
But I see a different law in my members, waging war with the law of my mind, and capturing me by the law of sin which is in my members.
24
O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?
25
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
