Romans (The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the )

Brethren, do you not know--for I am writing to people acquainted with the Law--that it is during our lifetime that we are subject to the Law?

A wife, for instance, whose husband is living is bound to him by the Law; but if her husband dies the law that bound her to him has now no hold over her.

This accounts for the fact that if during her husband's life she lives with another man, she will be stigmatized as an adulteress; but that if her husband is dead she is no longer under the old prohibition, and even though she marries again, she is not an adulteress.

So, my brethren, to you also the Law died through the incarnation of Christ, that you might be wedded to Another, namely to Him who rose from the dead in order that we might yield fruit to God.

For whilst we were under the thraldom of our earthly natures, sinful passions-- made sinful by the Law--were always being aroused to action in our bodily faculties that they might yield fruit to death.

But seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage, the Law has now no hold over us, so that we render a service which, instead of being old and formal, is new and spiritual.

What follows? Is the Law itself a sinful thing? No, indeed; on the contrary, unless I had been taught by the Law, I should have known nothing of sin as sin. For instance, I should not have known what covetousness is, if the Law had not repeatedly said, "Thou shalt not covet."

Sin took advantage of this, and by means of the Commandment stirred up within me every kind of coveting; for apart from Law sin would be dead.

Once, apart from Law, I was alive, but when the Commandment came, sin sprang into life, and I died;

and, as it turned out, the very Commandment which was to bring me life, brought me death.

For sin seized the advantage, and by means of the Commandment it completely deceived me, and also put me to death.

So that the Law itself is holy, and the Commandment is holy, just and good.

Did then a thing which is good become death to me? No, indeed, but sin did; so that through its bringing about death by means of what was good, it might be seen in its true light as sin, in order that by means of the Commandment the unspeakable sinfulness of sin might be plainly shown.

For we know that the Law is a spiritual thing; but I am unspiritual--the slave, bought and sold, of sin.

For what I do, I do not recognize as my own action. What I desire to do is not what I do, but what I am averse to is what I do.

But if I do that which I do not desire to do, I admit the excellence of the Law,