Romans 7
1KNOW ye not, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for so long a time as he lives?
2For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives; but if the husband die, she is loosed from the law of the husband.
3So then if, while the husband lives, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if the husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she be married to another man.
4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, in order that ye should be married to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to God.
5For when we were in the flesh, the emotions of sins, which were by the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
6But now we are delivered from the law, having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
7What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Far be it! But I had not known sin, except through law; for I had not known coveting, if the law had not said: Thou shalt not covet.
8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of coveting. For without law, sin is dead.
9And I was alive without law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
10And the commandment, which was for life, that I found to be for death.
11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
12So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
13Has then that which is good become death to me? Far be it! But sin, that it might appear sin, working death to me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.
14For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15For what I perform, I know not; for not what I desire, that do I; but what I hate, that I do.
16But if what I desire not, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.
17Now then, it is no longer I that perform it, but the sin that dwells in me.
18For I know that there dwells not in me, that is, in my flesh, any good; for to desire is present with me; but to perform that which is good I find not.
19For the good that I desire, I do not; but the evil that I desire not, that I do.
20But if what I desire not, that I do, it is no more I that perform it, but the sin that dwells in me.
21I find then the law, that, when I desire to 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.
24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?
25I 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.