CHAPTER V.

THOSE IN CHRIST DEAD TO THE LAW, THE FLESH THE PRINCIPLE OF SIN, ITS DOMINION OVER THE MIND, ETC.

1 ^7:1ARE you ignorant, brothers, for I speak to them who understand law, that the law has authority over a man as long as he lives? ^7:2For a woman under a husband is bound by law to a living husband; but if the husband has died she is released from the law of the husband. ^7:3Therefore while the husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she is married to another man; but if the husband has died, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if married to another man. ^7:4So, my brothers, you have also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you should be married to another, to him that was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. ^7:5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful affections operated through the law in our members to bear fruit to death; ^7:6but now we are released from the law by which we were held having died, that we should serve [God] in newness of spirit, not in the old age of a writing.

2 ^7:7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? By no means. On the contrary I knew not sin except through the law; for I had not known inordinate desire, unless the law had said, You shall not desire inordinately. ^7:8But Sin having taken occasion through the commandment wrought in me every inordinate desire; for without the law sin was dead.

3 ^7:9And I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died, ^7:10and the commandment which was for life was found to be for death. ^7:11For sin having taken occasion through the commandment deceived me, and through it killed me. ^7:12The law therefore is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good. ^7:13Did then that which is good become death to me? By no means, but sin; that sin might be made manifest, producing death to me through that which is good, that sin might become exceedingly sinful through the commandment. ^7:14For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. ^7:15For what I do this I approve not; for I do not what I wish, but what I hate, this I do. ^7:16But if what I wish not this I do, I consent to the law that it is good; ^7:17and now I no longer do it, but the sin that dwells in me. ^7:18For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, there dwells no good. For to wish is present with me, but to do the good is not; ^7:19for the good which I wish I do not, but the evil which I wish not this I do.

4 ^7:20But if what I wish not this I do, I no longer do it, but sin which dwells in me. ^7:21I find therefore the law, that when I wish to do good evil is present with me; ^7:22for I consent to the law of God as to my inward man, [my soul], ^7:23but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin which is in my members. ^7:24Miserable man that I am; who will deliver me from the body of this death? ^7:25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord; therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin.