Good News Translation GNT
World English Bible WEB
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.
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Or don't you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?
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.
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For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of 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.
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So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man.
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.
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Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to 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.
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For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit to 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.
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But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
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.
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What will we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn't have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn't have known coveting, unless the law had 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.
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But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead.
9 I myself was once alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life,
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I was alive apart from the law once, 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.
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The commandment, which was to life, this I found to be to death;
11 Sin found its chance, and by means of the commandment it deceived me and killed me.
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for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
12 So then, the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, right, and good.
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So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, 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.
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Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful.
14 We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a mortal, sold as a slave to sin.
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For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, 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.
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For I don't know what I am doing. For I don't practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.
16 Since what I do is what I don't want to do, this shows that I agree that the Law is right.
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But if what I don't desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.
17 So I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me.
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So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in 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.
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For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don't find it doing that which is good.
19 I don't do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do.
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For the good which I desire, I don't do; but the evil which I don't desire, that I practice.
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.
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But if what I don't desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in 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.
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I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present.
22 My inner being delights in the law of God.
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For I delight in God's law after the inward man,
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.
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but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
24 What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death?
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What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this 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.
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I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
The World English Bible is in the public domain.