CHAPTER 7

1 Know ye not, brethren, (for to those who know the law I speak,) that the law rules over a man as long as he lives.

2 For a woman, subject to a husband, is bound by the law to a living husband: but if the husband die, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

3 While then the husband is living, she shall be called an adulteress, if she be united to another man: but if the husband be dead, she is freed from his law, so that she is not an adulteress by marrying another man.

4 And thus, my brethren, are ye also dead to the law through the body of Christ, that hereafter ye should be united to another, even to him who has been raised from the dead, that ye might bring forth fruit to God.

5 For when ye were in the flesh, the emotions of sin which are through the law wrought in your members to bring forth fruit to death:

6 But now ye are loosed from the law, having died to that by which we were held, that we might serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

7 What then shall we say? Is the law sin? By no means: yet sin I knew not except through the law; for concupiscence I had not known, had not the law said, “Thou shalt not lust.”

8 And the occasion being taken, sin through the commandment wrought in me every concupiscence. Sin indeed without the law is dead:

9 And I lived some time without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died;

10 And the commandment, which was for life, was found by me to be unto death:

11 For sin taking occasion through the commandment, led me astray, and through it slew me.

12 So then the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

13 Did then what is good become death to me? By no means: but sin, that it might appear to be sin, wrought death in me through that which is good, in order that sin through the commandment might become above measure sinful.

14 We indeed know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin:

15 For what I work I know not; since what I would, this I do not, but what I hate, this I do.

16 If then, what I would not, this I do, I consent to the law of God, that it is good:

17 And now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells in me. ⁴⁸⁶⁴⁸⁶     Here is repeated in a different way what had been before stated, only the reference before was to the weakness of good, but here to the power of evil.

18 I indeed know that no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for to will is present with me, but to perform what is good I find not;

19 Since the good I would I do not; but the evil I would not, that I do.

20 But if what I would not, that I do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells in me.

21 I find then a law that while I am willing to do good, evil lies in wait for me.

22 I consent then to the law of God according to the inner-man:

23 But I see another law in my members, resisting the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which is in my members.

24 Miserable man am I! who shall rescue me from this body of death?

25 I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord: so then with the mind I serve myself the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.