¹Or don’t you know , brothers (for I speak to men who know the law ), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives ?[#7:1 The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”]

²For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives , but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband .

³So then if , while the husband lives , she is joined to another man , she would be called an adulteress . But if the husband dies, she is free from the law , so that she is no adulteress , though she is joined to another man .

⁴Therefore , my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ , that you would be joined to another , to him who was raised from the dead , that we might produce fruit to God .

⁵For when we were in the flesh , the sinful passions which were through the law worked in our members to bring out fruit to death .

⁶But now we have been discharged from the law , having died to that in which we were held ; so that we serve in newness of the spirit , and not in oldness of the letter .

⁷What shall we say then ? Is the law sin? May it never be ! However , I wouldn’t have known sin except through the law . For I wouldn’t have known coveting unless the law had said , “You shall not covet .”[#Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21]

⁸But sin, finding occasion through the commandment , produced in me all kinds of coveting . For apart from the law , sin is dead .

⁹I was alive apart from the law once , but when the commandment came , sin revived and I died .

¹⁰The commandment which was for life , this I found to be for death ;

¹¹for sin, finding occasion through the commandment , deceived me , and through it killed me .

¹²Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous , and good .

¹³Did then that which is good become death to me ? May it never be ! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good ; 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 don’t understand what I am doing . For I don’t practise what I desire to do ; but what I hate , that I do .

¹⁶But if what I don’t desire , that I do , I consent to the law that it is good .

¹⁷So now it is no more I that do it , but sin which dwells in me .

¹⁸For I know that in me , that is , in my flesh , dwells no good thing . For desire is present with me , but I don’t find it doing that which is good .

¹⁹For the good which I desire , I don’t do ; but the evil which I don’t desire , that I practise.

²⁰But if what I don’t desire , that I do , it is no more I that do it , but sin which dwells in me .

²¹I find then the law that , while I desire to do good , evil is present .

²²For I delight in God ’s law after the inward person,

²³but I see a different law in my members , warring against the law of my mind , and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members .

²⁴What a wretched man I am ! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death ?

²⁵I thank God through Jesus Christ , our Lord ! So then with the mind , I myself serve God ’s law , but with the flesh , sin’s law .