1Do you not know, brethren, (for I speak to those who know the law,) that the law has jurisdiction over a person only as long as he lives? 2For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if the husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband. 3So then, if she marries another man while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband dies, she is free from that law; so that she is not an adulteress, though she marries another man. 4Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ; so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead that we might bring forth fruit for God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sin, which were aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bring forth fruit for death. 6But now we have been released from the law, dead to that which held us bound; so that we serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. 7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? By no means. On the contrary, I would not have known sin, but by the law: for I would not have known about coveting unless the law had said, You shall not covet. 8But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For without the law sin is dead. 9For I was once alive without the law: but when the commandment came, sin became alive, and I died. 10And the commandment, which was intended to bring life, I found to bring death. 11For sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good. 13Then did that which is good bring death to me? By no means. But sin, that it might appear to be sin, worked death in me by that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful. 14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold into bondage to sin. 15I do not understand that which I do: for I do not do what I want to do; but what I hate is the very thing I do. 16But if I do that which I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17Now then it is no longer I who does it, but sin which dwells in me. 18For I know that in myself (that is, in my flesh,) no good thing dwells: for to desire what is right is present within me; but to perform what is right, this I cannot do. 19For I do not do the good that I want: but the evil which I do not want, that is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells in me. 21So I find this law at work, that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God in my inner man: 23But I see another law in the members of my body, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with my mind I myself serve the law of God; but with my flesh the law of sin.