The object and operation of the law.

¹⁾Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man only as long as he liveth?

²⁾For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband only as long as he liveth; for if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

³⁾So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

⁴⁾Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

⁵⁾For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were not according to the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

⁶⁾But now we are delivered from the law wherein we were held, being dead to the law, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

⁷⁾What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

⁸⁾But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

⁹⁾For once I was alive without transgression of the law, but when the commandment of Christ came, sin revived, and I died.

¹⁰⁾And when I believed not the commandment of Christ which came, which was ordained to life, I found it condemned me unto death.

¹¹⁾For sin, taking occasion, denied the commandment, and deceived me; and by it I was slain.

¹²⁾Nevertheless, I found the law to be holy, and the commandment to be holy, and just, and good.

¹³⁾Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin by that which is good working death in me; that sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful.

¹⁴⁾For we know that the commandment is spiritual; but when I was under the law, I was yet canal, sold under sin.

¹⁵⁾But now I am spiritual; for that which I am commanded to do, I do; and that which I am commanded not to allow, I allow not.

¹⁶⁾For what I know is not right, I would not do; for that which is sin, I hate.

¹⁷⁾If then I do not that which I would not allow, I consent unto the law, that it is good; and I am not condemned.

¹⁸⁾Now then, it is no more I that do sin; but I seek to subdue that sin which dwelleth in me.

¹⁹⁾For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but to perform that which is good I find not, only in Christ.

²⁰⁾For the good that I would have done when under the law, I find not to be good; therefore, I do it not.

²¹⁾But the evil which I would not do under the law, I find to be good; that, I do.

²²⁾Now if I do that, through the assistance of Christ, I would not do under the law, I am not under the law; and it is no more that I seek to do wrong, but to subdue sin that dwelleth in me.

²³⁾I find then that under the law, that when I would do good evil was present with me; for I delight in the law of God after the inward man.

²⁴⁾And now I see another law, even the commandment of Christ, and it is imprinted in my mind.

²⁵⁾But my members are warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

²⁶⁾And if I subdue not the sin which is in me, but with the flesh serve the law of sin; O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

²⁷⁾I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, then, that so with the mind I myself serve the law of God.