ARE you unacquainted, brethren, (for I am speaking to those who know
the law,) that the law exercises dominion over a person for as long
time as he liveth? (2)For the woman who is subject to a husband, is
bound by the law to that husband during his life; but if the husband be
dead, she is discharged from that husband. (3)She shall therefore
certainly be counted an adulteress, if, her husband being alive, she be
for another man: but if her husband is dead, she is free from the law;
so that she shall be no adulteress, though married to another husband.
(4)Wherefore, my brethren, ye also have become dead to the law through
the body of Christ; that ye might be for another, who was raised from
the dead, that we might bring forth fruit for God. (5)For when we were
in the flesh, the sinful passions excited by the law, wrought
powerfully in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death. (6)But now
we have been discharged from the law, that being dead by which we were
held fast; that we should serve in renovation of spirit, and not in the
antiquity of the letter. (7)What then shall we say? Is the law sin? God
forbid. Yea, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not even
known concupiscence, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
(8)But sin, seizing the opportunity by the law, wrought in me all
concupiscence. For without the law sin is dead. (9)For though I lived
without the law formerly; yet when the commandment came, sin revived,
but I died. (10)And the commandment, which _was_ for life, the same was
found by me for death. (11)For sin, seizing the occasion by the
commandment, deceived me, and thereby slew me. (12)So then the law
indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
(13)Did then that which is good become fatal to me? God forbid. But
sin, that it might appear sin by that which was good _in itself_, was
the cause of death to me; that sin through the commandment might become
transcendantly sinful. (14)For we know that the law is spiritual; but I
am fleshly, sold under sin. (15)For that which I am doing I approve
not: for not the thing which I wish, that do I practise; but the very
thing I hate, that I do. (16)But if what I would not, that I do, I
concur with the law that it is excellent. (17)Now then no more I do
this, but sin dwelling in me. (18)For I know that there dwelleth not in
me (that is, in my flesh) any good thing: for to will is present with
me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (19)For I do not
the good which I wish: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
(20)If then I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me. (21)I find then a law, that, when I wish
to do good, evil is presented to me. (22)For I am delighted with the
law of God, as respecting the inward man: (23)but I see another law in
my members, militating against the law in my mind, and making me
captive to the law of sin which is in my members. (24)O wretched man,
I! who shall pluck me from the body of this death? (25)I give thanks to
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Well then, I myself with my mind am
servant to the law of God; but in my flesh to the law of sin.