1 Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to those that know the law), that the law has dominion over a man only as long as he lives?
2 For the woman who is subject to a husband is obligated to the law so long as the husband lives; but if the husband dies, she is free from the law of the husband.
3 So then if, while her husband lives, she belongs to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress if she belongs to another man.
4 Likewise ye also, my brethren, are become dead to the law in the body of the Christ that ye should belong to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
5 For while we were in the flesh, the affections of the sins which were by the law worked in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
6 But now we are free from the law of death in which we were held, that we might serve in newness of Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? No, in no wise. But, I did not know sin except by the law; for neither would I have known lust if the law did not say, Thou shalt not covet.
8 Then sin, when there was occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of lust. For without the law sin was as if it were dormant.
9 So that without the law I lived for some time; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
10 And I found that the same commandment, which was unto life, was mortal unto me.
11 For sin, having had occasion, deceived me by the commandment and by it killed me.
12 So the law is truly holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? No, in no wise. But sin, to show itself sin by that which is good, worked death in me, making sin exceedingly sinful by the commandment.
14 For we now know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold unto subjection by sin.
15 For that which I do, I do not understand, and not even the good that I desire is what I do; but what I hate, that is what I do.
16 If then I do that which I do not desire, I approve that the law is good.
17 So that it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.
18 And I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing; for I have the desire, but I am not able to perform that which is good.
19 For I do not do the good that I desire; but the evil which I do not desire, that I do.
20 And if I do that which I do not desire, I am not working, but sin that dwells in me.
21 So that, desiring to do good, I find this law: evil is natural unto me.
22 For I delight with the law of God with the inward man,
23 but I see another law in my members which rebels against the law of my mind, bringing captive unto the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 The grace of God, by Jesus, the Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.