(ROMANS 7:1-11)

1Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking
to those who know the law—that the law has authority over
someone only as long as that person lives?

2For example, by
law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he
is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law
that binds her to him.

3So then, if she has sexual relations
with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called
an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from
that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

4So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through
the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him
who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear
fruit for God.

5For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the
sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that
we bore fruit for death.

6 But now, by dying to what once 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.

7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly
not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had
it not been for the law. For I would not have known what
coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not
covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the
commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For
apart from the law, sin was dead.

9 Once I was alive apart
from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang
to life and I died.

10 I found that the very commandment that
was intended to bring life actually brought death.

11 For
sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the
commandment, deceived me, and through the
commandment put me to death.