Chapter 7

  Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?  

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  For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to [her] husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of [her] husband.  

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  So then if, while [her] husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.  

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  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, [even] to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.  

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  For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.  

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  But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not [in] the oldness of the letter.  

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  What shall we say then? [Is] the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.  

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  But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin [was] dead.  

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  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.  

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  And the commandment, which [was ordained] to life, I found [to be] unto death.  

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  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew [me].  

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  Wherefore the law [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.  

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  Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.  

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

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  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.  

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  If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that [it is] good.  

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  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  

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  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that which is good I find not.  

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  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.  

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  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  

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

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  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:  

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  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  

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  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?  

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

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