Romans 7:7-25 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.

MNT⁽ⁱ⁾ ⁷ 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. ⁸ 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. ⁹ Once I lived apart from the Law, myself; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; ¹⁰ and the very commandment which should have meant life, this I found to mean death. ¹¹ For sin, when it had gained a vantage-ground through the commandment, beguiled me, and through it slew me. ¹² So then the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. ¹³ 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. ¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ If then I habitually do what I do not intend to do, I am consenting to the Law, that it is right. ¹⁷ And now it is longer I myself who do the deed, but it is sin which has its home in me. ¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ 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. ²¹ I find, then, this law, that when I intend to do good, evil is ever present with me. ²² For in my inmost self I delight in the law of God; ²³ 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. ²⁴ Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this slave of death? ²⁵ Oh, thank God! it is through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself in my will am in thralldom to the law of God; yet in my animal nature I am in thralldom to the law of sin.