Good News Translation GNT
Revised Standard Version RSV
1 Certainly you will understand what I am about to say, my friends, because all of you know about law. The law rules over people only as long as they live.
1 Do you not know, brethren--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only during his life?
2 A married woman, for example, is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if he dies, then she is free from the law that bound her to him.
2 Thus a married woman is bound by 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 will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is legally a free woman and does not commit adultery if she marries another man.
3 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 That is how it is with you, my friends. As far as the Law is concerned, you also have died because you are part of the body of Christ; and now you belong to him who was raised from death in order that we might be useful in the service of God.
4 Likewise, my brethren, 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 For when we lived according to our human nature, the sinful desires stirred up by the Law were at work in our bodies, and all we did ended in death.
5 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 Now, however, we are free from the Law, because we died to that which once held us prisoners. No longer do we serve in the old way of a written law, but in the new way of the Spirit.
6 But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
7 Shall we say, then, that the Law itself is sinful? Of course not! But it was the Law that made me know what sin is. If the Law had not said, "Do not desire what belongs to someone else," I would not have known such a desire.
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
8 But by means of that commandment sin found its chance to stir up all kinds of selfish desires in me. Apart from law, sin is a dead thing.
8 But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead.
9 I myself was once alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life,
9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died;
10 and I died. And the commandment which was meant to bring life, in my case brought death.
10 the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me.
11 Sin found its chance, and by means of the commandment it deceived me and killed me.
11 For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me.
12 So then, the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, right, and good.
12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13 But does this mean that what is good caused my death? By no means! It was sin that did it; by using what is good, sin brought death to me, in order that its true nature as sin might be revealed. And so, by means of the commandment sin is shown to be even more terribly sinful.
13 Did that which 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 am a mortal, sold as a slave to sin.
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15 I do not understand what I do; for I don't do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate.
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16 Since what I do is what I don't want to do, this shows that I agree that the Law is right.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
17 So I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me.
17 So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
18 I know that good does not live in me - that is, in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it.
18 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 I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
20 If I do what I don't want to do, this means that I am no longer the one who does it; instead, it is the sin that lives in me.
20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
21 So I find that this law is at work: when I want to do what is good, what is evil is the only choice I have.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22 My inner being delights in the law of God.
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
23 But I see a different law at work in my body - a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body.
23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.
24 What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death?
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ! This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God's law only with my mind, while my human nature serves the law of sin.
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the 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.