Thematic Bible
Romans 7:1 (show verse)
Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law is lord over a person as long as he lives?
Romans 7:2 (show verse)
For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage.
Romans 7:3 (show verse)
So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress.
Romans 7:4 (show verse)
So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God.
Romans 7:5 (show verse)
For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
Romans 7:6 (show verse)
But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.
Romans 7:7 (show verse)
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, "Do not covet."
Romans 7:8 (show verse)
But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead.
Romans 7:9 (show verse)
And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive
Romans 7:10 (show verse)
and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death!
Romans 7:11 (show verse)
For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died.
Romans 7:12 (show verse)
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
Romans 7:13 (show verse)
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
Romans 7:14 (show verse)
For we know that the law is spiritual -- but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin.
Romans 7:15 (show verse)
For I don't understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want -- instead, I do what I hate.
Romans 7:16 (show verse)
But if I do what I don't want, I agree that the law is good.
Romans 7:17 (show verse)
But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me.
Romans 7:18 (show verse)
For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.
Romans 7:19 (show verse)
For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want!
Romans 7:20 (show verse)
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.
Romans 7:21 (show verse)
So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me.
Romans 7:22 (show verse)
For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.
Romans 7:23 (show verse)
But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.
Romans 7:24 (show verse)
Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Romans 7:25 (show verse)
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.