Romans 7

No Longer Bound to the Law

1Know 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? 2For 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. + 3So 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. +

4Wherefore, 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. + 5For 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. + 6But 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. +

God’s Law Reveals Our Sin

7What 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. + 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. +

9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. + 11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. + 12Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. +

13Was 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.

Struggling with Sin

14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. + 15For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. + 16If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

18For 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. + 19For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. + 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: + 23but 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. + 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25I 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. +