New Living Translation NLT
Common English Bible CEB
1 Now, dear brothers and sisters —you who are familiar with the law—don’t you know that the law applies only while a person is living?
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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?
2 For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her.
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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.
3 So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.
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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.
4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.
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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.
5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.
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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.
6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
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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.
7 Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.”
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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.
8 But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power.
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But sin seized the opportunity and used this commandment to produce all kinds of desires in me. Sin is dead without the Law.
9 At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life,
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I used to be alive without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life,
10 and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.
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and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death.
11 Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me.
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Sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and killed me.
12 But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
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So the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
13 But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
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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.
14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.
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We know that the Law is spiritual, but I'm made of flesh and blood, and I'm sold as a slave to sin.
15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
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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.
16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.
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But if I'm doing the thing that I don't want to do, I'm agreeing that the Law is right.
17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
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But now I'm not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it's sin that lives in me.
18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t.
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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.
19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
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I don't do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don't want to do.
20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
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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.
21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
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So I find that, as a rule, when I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me.
22 I love God’s law with all my heart.
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I gladly agree with the Law on the inside,
23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.
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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.
24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
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I'm a miserable human being. Who will deliver me from this dead corpse?
25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
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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.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible