1 ¶ Do you not know, brethren, (for I am speaking to those who know the law,) that the law only has dominion over a man as long as he is alive?

2 For the woman who has a husband is bound to her husband by the law as long as he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law in regard to her husband.

3 So then, if she marries another man while her husband is alive, she will be an adulteress: but if her husband is dead, she is free from that law; so that she is not an adulteress, even though she is married to another man.

4 Likewise, my brethren, you also died to the law through the body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God.

5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, that were aroused by the law, were active in our members to bring forth fruit to death.

6 But now we have been released from the law, having died to that which once bound us; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

7 ¶ What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not. On the contrary, I would not have known what sin was, but by the law: for I would not have known what it was to covet, if the law had not said, You shall not covet.

8 On the other hand, sin energized by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For without the law sin is dead.

9 For I was once alive apart from the law: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

10 And the commandment, that was intended to bring life, brought death.

11 For sin, being energized by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

13 Did that which is good bring death to me? Absolutely not. But sin, that it might be recognized as sin, produced death in me through that which is good; so that through the commandment sin might become extremely sinful.

14 ¶ For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am flesh, sold under sin.

15 For what I do is not what I approve: for I do not do what I would like to do, ; but I do the very thing that I hate.

16 But if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good.

17 Moreover, it is no longer something that I do, but sin that dwells in me.

18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me (that is, in my flesh,): for I want to do what is right; but I cannot carry it out.

19 For I fail to do the good that I want to do: but do the wrong that I do not want to do.

20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.

21 I find then a law, that, when I want to do good, evil is present with me.

22 For I inwardly delight in the law of God:

23 But I see another law at work in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that is in my members.

24 O wretched man that I am! who will rescue me from this body of death?

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.