Romans 7:9–25

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.

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I admit that the law is good. ¹⁷In that case, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it .

¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. ²⁰And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it .

²¹So this is the principle I have discovered: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God’s law. ²³But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me.^b

²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.