The New Testament

The New Testament › Romans

Romans 7

1Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know law—that the law rules over a person as long as he lives? 2For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband. 3So then, while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress if she belongs to another man; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she belongs to another man.

4So, my brothers, you too were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions that came through the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 6But now we have been released from the law, having died to what held us, so that we serve as slaves in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the written code.

7What, then, will we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Yet I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known coveting if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced every kind of coveting in me. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came to life 10and I died. And the commandment intended for life turned out to lead to death for me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13Did what is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! Rather, it was sin, producing death in me through what is good so that it might be shown to be sin, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond measure. 14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15For I do not understand what I bring about. For I do not practice what I want, but I do what I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But now it is no longer I who bring it about, but sin that dwells in me. 18For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire is present with me, but carrying out what is good is not. 19For I do not do the good I want, but I practice the evil I do not want. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who bring it about, but sin that dwells in me.

21So I find this law: when I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in God's law according to the inner person, 23but I see another law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin that is in the members of my body. 24Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus the Messiah our Lord! So then, I myself serve as a slave to God's law with my mind, but to sin's law with my flesh.

Translation notes 5

7:1–4 — Law and marriage. “Brothers” addresses the community, including women. The marriage illustration concerns release through a spouse's death; it is not an exhaustive treatment of every marriage question. The application changes the alignment: the believers are the ones said to have died, so the illustration should not be pressed into an exact correspondence at every point. “Belong to another” keeps the marriage relationship visible.

7:5–6 — Flesh, fruit, and service. “In the flesh” concerns the former condition governed by human weakness and sin, not simply having a physical body. The law's role in sinful passions is developed in verses 7–13. “Written code” renders “letter” and contrasts with service in the Spirit; it does not mean that careful attention to a text's wording is wrong.

7:7–13 — The speaker and the commandment. Interpreters understand “I” as Paul's own experience, a representative person under the law, Adam, or Israel. The translation retains the first person and the tense changes without naming one of these in the text. “Covet” means desire what one should not have. Sin is pictured as seizing an opportunity, deceiving, and killing; Paul explicitly calls the law and commandment holy and good.

7:14–20 — Wanting and doing. Whether this describes Paul before or after coming to faith, or a representative voice, remains disputed. The present-tense struggle is retained. “Fleshly” follows the working text's adjective related to flesh. The repeated distinction between “I” and indwelling sin is not expanded into an excuse that the person bears no responsibility.

7:21–25 — Law, warfare, and rescue. “Law” can name an operating principle or power as well as God's law; the repeated word keeps the argument's connections visible. “Members” are bodily parts or capacities. “Body of death” retains the image without identifying a separate corpse attached to the speaker. The thanksgiving is followed by the divided service in verse 25 in the order Paul gives it; the translation does not rearrange the paragraph to resolve the tension.