Common English Bible CEB
New Revised Standard NRS
1 Brothers and sisters, I'm talking to you as people who know the Law. Don't you know that the Law has power over someone only as long as he or she lives?
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Do you not know, brothers and sisters —for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person's lifetime?
2 A married woman is united with her husband under the Law while he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is released from the Law concerning her husband.
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Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.
3 So then, if she lives with another man while her husband is alive, she's committing adultery. But if her husband dies, she's free from the Law, so she won't be committing adultery if she marries someone else.
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Accordingly, 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.
4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also died with respect to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you could be united with someone else. You are united with the one who was raised from the dead so that we can bear fruit for God.
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In the same way, my friends, you 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.
5 When we were self-centered, the sinful passions aroused through the Law were at work in all the parts of our body, so that we bore fruit for death.
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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.
6 But now we have been released from the Law. We have died with respect to the thing that controlled us, so that we can be slaves in the new life under the Spirit, not in the old life under the written Law.
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But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
7 So what are we going to say? That the Law is sin? Absolutely not! But I wouldn't have known sin except through the Law. I wouldn't have known the desire for what others have if the Law had not said, Don't desire to take what others have.
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What then should 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. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
8 But sin seized the opportunity and used this commandment to produce all kinds of desires in me. Sin is dead without the Law.
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But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead.
9 I used to be alive without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life,
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I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived
10 and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death.
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and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
11 Sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and killed me.
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For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
12 So the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
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So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13 So did something good bring death to me? Absolutely not! But sin caused my death through something good so that sin would be exposed as sin. That way sin would become even more thoroughly sinful through the commandment.
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Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working 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.
14 We know that the Law is spiritual, but I'm made of flesh and blood, and I'm sold as a slave to sin.
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For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.
15 I don't know what I'm doing, because I don't do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate.
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I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16 But if I'm doing the thing that I don't want to do, I'm agreeing that the Law is right.
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Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
17 But now I'm not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it's sin that lives in me.
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But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
18 I know that good doesn't live in me—that is, in my body. The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can't do it.
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For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
19 I don't do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don't want to do.
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For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
20 But if I do the very thing that I don't want to do, then I'm not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it is sin that lives in me that is doing it.
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Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find that, as a rule, when I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me.
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So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.
22 I gladly agree with the Law on the inside,
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For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,
23 but I see a different law at work in my body. It wages a war against the law of my mind and takes me prisoner with the law of sin that is in my body.
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but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 I'm a miserable human being. Who will deliver me from this dead corpse?
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Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25 Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then I'm a slave to God's Law in my mind, but I'm a slave to sin's law in my body.
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Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.