Romans 7

NEW JERUSALEM	NEW AMERICAN BIBLE
1 As people who are familiar with the Law, brothers, you cannot have forgotten that the law can control aperson only during that person's lifetime.	1 Are you unaware, brothers (for I am speaking to people who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over one as long as one lives?
2 A married woman, for instance, is bound to her husband by law, as long as he lives, but when herhusband dies all her legal obligation to him as husband is ended.	2 Thus a married woman is bound by law to her living husband; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law in respect to her husband.
3 So if she were to have relations with another man while her husband was still alive, she would betermed an adulteress; but if her husband dies, her legal obligation comes to an end and if she then has relationswith another man, that does not make her an adulteress.	3 Consequently, while her husband is alive she will be called an adulteress if she consorts with another man. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and she is not an adulteress if she consorts with another man.
4 In the same way you, my brothers, through the body of Christ have become dead to the Law and soyou are able to belong to someone else, that is, to him who was raised from the dead to make us live fruitful y for God.	4 In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5 While we were stil living by our natural inclinations, the sinful passions aroused by the Law wereworking in al parts of our bodies to make us live lives which were fruitful only for death.	5 For when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, awakened by the law, worked in our members to bear fruit for death.
6 But now we are released from the Law, having died to what was binding us, and so we are in a newservice, that of the spirit, and not in the old service of a written code.	6 But now we are released from the law, dead to what held us captive, so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not under the obsolete letter.
7 What should we say, then? That the Law itself is sin? Out of the question! All the same, if it had notbeen for the Law, I should not have known what sin was; for instance, I should not have known what it meant tocovet if the Law had not said: You are not to covet.	7 What then can we say? That the law is sin? Of course not! Yet I did not know sin except through the law, and I did not know what it is to covet except that the law said, "You shall not covet."
8 But, once it found the opportunity through that commandment, sin produced in me al kinds ofcovetousness; as long as there is no Law, sin is dead.	8 But sin, finding an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetousness. Apart from the law sin is dead.
9 Once, when there was no Law, I used to be alive; but when the commandment came, sin came to life	9 I once lived outside the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive;
10 and I died. The commandment was meant to bring life but I found it brought death,	10 then I died, and the commandment that was for life turned out to be death for me.
11 because sin, finding its opportunity by means of the commandment, beguiled me and, by means of it,kil ed me.	11 For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it put me to death.
12 So then, the Law is holy, and what it commands is holy and upright and good.	12 So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13 Does that mean that something good resulted in my dying? Out of the question! But sin, in order to beidentified as sin, caused my death through that good thing, and so it is by means of the commandment that sinshows its unbounded sinful power.	13 Did the good, then, become death for me? Of course not! Sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through the good, so that sin might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment.
14 We are wel aware that the Law is spiritual: but I am a creature of flesh and blood sold as a slave tosin.	14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin.
15 I do not understand my own behaviour; I do not act as I mean to, but I do things that I hate.	15 What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
16 While I am acting as I do not want to, I still acknowledge the Law as good,	16 Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.
17 so it is not myself acting, but the sin which lives in me.	17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
18 And really, I know of nothing good living in me -- in my natural self, that is -- for though the wil to dowhat is good is in me, the power to do it is not:	18 For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
19 the good thing I want to do, I never do; the evil thing which I do not want -- that is what I do.	19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
20 But every time I do what I do not want to, then it is not myself acting, but the sin that lives in me.	20 Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 So I find this rule: that for me, where I want to do nothing but good, evil is close at my side.	21 So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
22 In my inmost self I dearly love God's law,	22 For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
23 but I see that acting on my body there is a different law which battles against the law in my mind. So Iam brought to be a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body.	23 but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who wil rescue me from this body doomed to death?	24 Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
25 God -- thanks be to him -- through Jesus Christ our Lord. So it is that I myself with my mind obey thelaw of God, but in my disordered nature I obey the law of sin.	25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.