1Brothers, don't you know that the law has authority over someone only as long as they live? (I am speaking to people who understand the law.)
2For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning husbands.
3So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she would be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not committing adultery if she marries another man.
4In the same way, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could belong to another—to him who was raised from the dead—in order that we might produce fruit for God.
5When we were controlled by our sinful nature, the sinful desires stirred up by the Law were at work in our bodies, producing fruit that led to death.
6But now we have been released from the law, having died to what once held us captive. So now we serve in a new way, by the Spirit, not in the old way, by the written code.
7What should we say then? Is the Law sinful? Absolutely not! In fact, I would not have known what sin was if it weren't for the Law. For example, I wouldn't have known what coveting was if the Law hadn't said, "You must not covet."
8But sin, by taking advantage of the commandment, stirred up in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the Law, sin is dead.
9I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, and I died.
10I found that the very commandment that was meant to bring life actually brought death.
11For sin, taking advantage of the commandment, deceived me and then killed me through it.
12So the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
13Did what is good then bring about my death? Absolutely not! But sin brought about my death through what was good, in order that sin might be shown to be truly sinful and become utterly sinful through the commandment.
14We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, a slave to sin.
15I don't understand what I do. For I don't practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.
16Now if I do what I don't want to do, I agree with the Law that it is good.
17So it is no longer I who do it, but sin living in me.
18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19For I don't do the good I want to do, but the evil I don't want to do—this I keep on doing.
20Now if I do what I don't want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin living in me.
21So, I find that when I want to do good, evil is always there with me.
22I love God’s law with my inner being,
23but I see another law at work in my body. It fights against the law in my mind and makes me a prisoner of the law of sin that is in my body.
24What a miserable person I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is bringing me death?
25Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So, with my mind, I serve God’s law, but with my sinful nature, I serve the law of sin.