Romans 7
7
An Example From Marriage
1Brothers and sisters, you all understand the Law of Moses. So surely you know that the law rules over people only while they are alive. 2It’s like what the law says about marriage: A woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. 3But if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, the law says she is guilty of adultery. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. So if she marries another man after her husband dies, she is not guilty of adultery.
4In the same way, my brothers and sisters, your old selves died and you became free from the law through the body of Christ. Now you belong to someone else. You belong to the one who was raised from death. We belong to Christ so that we can be used in service to God. 5In the past we were ruled by our sinful selves. The law made us want to do sinful things. And those sinful desires controlled our bodies, so that what we did only brought us spiritual death. 6In the past the law held us as prisoners, but our old selves died, and we were made free from the law. So now we serve God in a new way, not in the old way, with the written rules. Now we serve God in the new way, with the Spirit.
Our Fight Against Sin
7You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin means. I would never have known it is wrong to want something that is not mine. But the law said, “You must not want what belongs to someone else.”#Quote from Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21. 8And sin found a way to use that command and make me want all kinds of things that weren’t mine. So sin came to me because of the command. But without the law, sin has no power. 9Before I knew the law, I was alive. But when I heard the law’s command, sin began to live, 10and I died spiritually. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death. 11Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.
12Now the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good. 13Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No, it was sin that used the good command to bring me death. This shows how terrible sin really is. It can use a good command to produce a result that shows sin at its very worst.
The War Inside Us
14We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. 15I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. 16And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it. 18Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. 19I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.
21So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22In my mind I am happy with God’s law. 23But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. 24What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Romiyim (Romans) 7
7
1Or do you not know, brothers – for I speak to those knowing the Torah – that the Torah rules over a man as long as he lives?
2For the married woman has been bound by Torah to the living husband, but if the husband dies, she is released from the Torah concerning her husband.
3So then, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she becomes another man’s. But if her husband dies, she is free from that part of the Torah, so that she is not an adulteress, having become another man’s.
4So my brothers, you also were put to death to the Torah through the body of Messiah, for you to become another’s, the One who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to Elohim.
5For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, through the Torah, were working in our members to bear fruit to death.
6But now we have been released from the Torah, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in newness of Spirit and not in oldness of letter.
7What, then, shall we say? Is the Torah sin? Let it not be! However, I did not know sin except through the Torah. For also the covetousness I knew not if the Torah had not said, “You shall not covet.”# Exo. 20:17; Deu. 5:21
8But sin, having taken the occasion through the command, did work in me all sorts of covetousness. For apart from Torah sin is dead.
9And I was alive apart from the Torah once, but when the command came, the sin revived, and I died.
10And the command which was to result in life, this I found to result in death.
11For sin, having taken the occasion through the command, deceived me, and through it killed me.
12So that the Torah truly is set-apart, and the command set-apart, and righteous, and good.
13Therefore, has that which is good become death to me? Let it not be! But the sin, that sin might be manifest, was working death in me through what is good, so that sin through the command might become an exceedingly great sinner.
14For we know that the Torah is Spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.
15For what I work, I know not. For what I wish, that I do not practise, but what I hate, that I do.
16But if I do what I do not wish, I agree with the Torah that it is good.
17And now, it is no longer I that work it, but the sin dwelling in me.
18For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good. For to wish is present with me, but to work the good I do not find.
19For the good that I wish to do, I do not do; but the evil I do not wish to do, this I practise.
20And if I do that which I do not wish, it is no longer I who work it, but the sin dwelling in me.
21I find therefore this law, that when I wish to do the good, that the evil is present with me.
22For I delight in the Torah of Elohim#See Psa. 119:16 according to the inward man,
23but I see another torah in my members, battling against the torah of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the torah of sin which is in my members.
24Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?
25Thanks to Elohim, through יהושע Messiah our Master! So then, with the mind I myself truly serve the Torah of Elohim, but with the flesh the torah of sin.
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