For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am made of flesh that is frail, sold into slavery to sin.

What are we then to conclude? Is the law sin? Of course not! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have learned what sin was, for I should not have known what an evil desire was, if the law had not said, "You must not have an evil desire."

Do you not know, brothers -- for I speak to those who are acquainted with the law -- that the law can press its claim over a man only so long as he lives?

For I know that nothing good has its home in me; that is, in my lower self; I have the will but not the power to do what is right.

Indeed, I do not understand what I do, for I do not practice what I want to do, but I am always doing what I hate.

Wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this deadly lower nature?

So, my brothers, you too in the body of Christ have ended your relation to the law, so that you may be married to another husband, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

and so, in my case, the command which should have meant life turned out to mean death.

For sin found its rallying point in that command and through it deceived me and killed me.

But if I am always doing what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is right.

Now really it is not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

But if I do the things that I do not want to do, it is really not I that am doing these things, but it is sin which has its home within me.

So if she marries another man while her husband is living, she is called an adulteress, but if he dies, she is free from that marriage bond, so that she will not be an adulteress though later married to another man.

So the law itself is holy, and its specific commands are holy, right, and good.

But now we have been freed from our relation to the law; we have ended our relation to that by which we once were held in bonds, so that we may serve in a new spiritual way and not in the old literalistic way.

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is freed from the marriage bond.

Sin found its rallying point in that command and stirred within me every sort of evil desire, for without law, sin is lifeless.

So I find this law: When I want to do right, the wrong is always in my way.

For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death.

For in accordance with my better inner nature I approve God's law,

but I see another power operating in my lower nature in conflict with the power operated by my reason, which makes me a prisoner to the power of sin which is operating in my lower nature.

I was once alive when I had no connection with the law, but when the command came, sin revived, and then I died;

Did that which is good, then, result in death to me? Of course not! It was sin that did it, so that it might show itself as sin, for by means of that good thing it brought about my death, so that through the command sin might appear surpassingly sinful.

Thank God! It has been done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my higher nature I am a slave to the law of God, but in my lower nature, to the law of sin.

Indeed, I do not do the good things that I want to do, but I do practice the evil things that I do not want to do.