Romans 7:5–13

⁵For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death. ⁶But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

⁷What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”^{a 8}But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

⁹Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. ¹⁰So I discovered that the very commandment that was meant to bring life actually brought death. ¹¹For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death.

¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

¹³Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! But in order that sin might be exposed as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.