Common English Bible CEB
English Standard Version ESV
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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Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
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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For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
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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Likewise, my brothers, you also 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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For 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 released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
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 shall 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. For 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 through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For 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 came alive and I died.
10 and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death.
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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 through 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 righteous 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 that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing 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 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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For 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 with the law, that it 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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So now it is no longer I who 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 in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
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 keep on doing.
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 who 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 right, 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 inner being,
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 waging war against the law of my mind and 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 deliver 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, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2025