| New Living Translation | English Standard Version |
| 1Now, dear brothers and sisters —you who are familiar with the law—don’t you know that the law applies only while a person is living? | 1Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? |
| 2For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. | 2For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. |
| 3So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. | 3Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. |
| 4So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. | 4Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. |
| 5When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. | 5For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. |
| 6But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit. God’s Law Reveals Our Sin | 6But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. |
| 7Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.” | 7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” |
| 8But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. | 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. |
| 9At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, | 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. |
| 10and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. | 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. |
| 11Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. | 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. |
| 12But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good. | 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. |
| 13But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes. Struggling with Sin | 13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. |
| 14So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. | 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. |
| 15I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. | 15For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. |
| 16But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. | 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. |
| 17So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. | 17So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. |
| 18And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. | 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. |
| 19I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. | 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. |
| 20But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. | 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. |
| 21I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. | 21So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. |
| 22I love God’s law with all my heart. | 22For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, |
| 23But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. | 23but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. |
| 24Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? | 24Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? |
| 25Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. | 25Thanks 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. |
| Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. | ESV Text Edition: 2016. The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers. Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All rights reserved. |
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