1 Surely you know, my brothers ??for I am speaking to men who know what law means ??that the law has hold over a person only during his lifetime!
2 Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is alive; but if the husband dies, she is done with the law of 'the husband.'
3 Accordingly, she will be termed an adulteress if she becomes another man's while her husband is alive; but if her husband dies, she is freed from the law of 'the husband,' so that she is no adulteress if she becomes another man's.
4 It is the same in your case, my brothers. The crucified body of Christ made you dead to the Law, so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead that we might be fruitful to God.
5 For when we were unspiritual, the sinful cravings excited by the Law were active in our members and made us fruitful to Death;
6 but now we are done with the Law, we have died to what once held us, so that we can serve in a new way, not under the written code as of old but in the Spirit.
7 What follows, then? That 'the Law is equivalent to sin'? Never! Why, had it not been for the Law, I would never have known what sin meant! Thus I would never have known what it is to covet, unless the Law had said, You must not covet.
8 The command gave an impulse to sin, and sin resulted for me in all manner of covetous desire ??for sin, apart from law, is lifeless.
9 I lived at one time without law myself, but when the command came home to me, sin sprang to life and I died;
10 the command that meant life proved death for me.
11 The command gave an impulse to sin, sin beguiled me and used the command to kill me.
12 So the Law at any rate is holy, the command is holy, just, and for our good.
13 Then did what was meant for my good prove fatal to me? Never! It was sin; sin resulted in death for me by making use of this good thing. This was how sin was to be revealed in its true nature; it was to use the command to become sinful in the extreme.
14 The Law is spiritual; we know that. But then I am a creature of the flesh, in the thraldom of sin.
15 I cannot understand my own actions; I do not act as I want to act; on the contrary, I do what I detest.
16 Now, when I act against my wishes, that means I agree that the Law is right.
17 That being so, it is not I who do the deed but sin that dwells within me.
18 For in me (that is, in my flesh) no good dwells, I know; the wish is there, but not the power of doing what is right.
19 I cannot be good as I want to be, and I do wrong against my wishes.
20 Well, if I act against my wishes, it is not I who do the deed but sin that dwells within me.
21 So this is my experience of the Law: I want to do what is right, but wrong is all I can manage;
22 I cordially agree with God's law, so far as my inner self is concerned,
23 but then I find quite another law in my members which conflicts with the law of my mind and makes me a prisoner to sin's law that resides in my members.
24 Miserable wretch that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25 God will! Thanks be to him through Jesus Christ our Lord! [Move second part of this vers to follow vs 23] (Thus, left to myself, I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.)