Romans:7:7-25

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* What shall we say then ? Is the Law sin ? Certainly not . On the contrary I should not have become acquainted with sin had it not been for the Law ; for except the Law had repeatedly said , "Thou shalt not lust ," I should never have known the sin of lust . * But when sin had gained a vantage-ground , by means of the commandment , it stirred up within me all manner of lust ; for where there is no law , sin is dead . * Once I lived apart from the Law , myself ; but when the commandment came , sin revived , and I died ; * and the very commandment which should have meant life , this I found to mean death . * For sin , when it had gained a vantage-ground through the commandment , beguiled me , and through it slew me . * So then the Law is holy , and the commandment is holy and righteous and good . * Did then that which was good become for me death ? Never ! but sin did ; that it might be manifest as sin , by that the unutterable malignity of sin might become plain through the commandment . * For we know that the Law is spiritual ; but as for me , I am a creature of flesh , bought and sold under the dominion of sin . * For what I perform I know not ; what I practise is not what I intend to do , but what I detest , that I habitually do . * If then I habitually do what I do not intend to do , I am consenting to the Law , that it is right . * And now it is longer I myself who do the deed , but it is sin which has its home in me . * For I know that in me , that is in my flesh , no good thing has its home ; for while to will is present with me , to carry out that which is right is not . * For the good that I intend to do , I do not ; but the evil which I do not ; but the evil which I do not intend to do , that I am ever practising . * But if I do the very thing I do not intend to do , it is no more I who practise it , but sin which has its home in me . * I find , then , this law , that when I intend to do good , evil is ever present with me . * For in my inmost self I delight in the law of God ; * but I find a different law in my bodily faculties , waging war with the law of my will , and taking me prisoner to that law of sin which is in my bodily faculties . * Oh , wretched man that I am ! Who shall deliver me from this slave of death ? * Oh , thank God ! it is through Jesus Christ our Lord . So then I myself in my will am in thraldom to the law of God ; yet in my animal nature I am in thraldom to the law of sin .

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