Romans 7

Brothers and sisters, don't you know this? I am talking to people who know the law. The law has authority over a person only while that person is alive.

1Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

Note"The law" in this chapter means the Law of Moses, the commandments given to Israel and written down in the first five books of the Bible. "Brethren" translates a Greek word for fellow members of a group that covers women as well as men, which is why the rendering says "brothers and sisters." The closing phrase is slightly open in Greek: "as long as he liveth" is normally taken to mean as long as the person lives, though the wording could also be read as "as long as it lives," that is, the law.

2Here is an example. A married woman is tied by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the marriage law that bound her to him.

2For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

Note"The law of her husband" means the law that governs her marriage, not a law her husband makes. In the legal world Paul is describing, a wife was bound to her husband and in practice only the husband could initiate a divorce. Paul takes the simplest case: the husband's death ends the marriage and the widow is free.

3So if she becomes another man's wife while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then she is not an adulteress, even if she marries another man.

3So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

NoteAdultery in this legal setting meant a married woman having relations with a man other than her husband. It was not a matter of having two husbands at once but of belonging to one man while attached to another, and under the Law of Moses it carried the death penalty. Once the husband is dead there is no marriage left to violate.

4In the same way, my brothers and sisters, you died to the law through the body of Christ. Now you can belong to someone else, to the one who was raised from the dead, so that we can bear fruit for God.

4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Note"Ye should be married to another" translates a Greek phrase that literally means "that you might come to belong to another." "Bring forth fruit" keeps the marriage picture running: in ancient idiom the fruit of a marriage was children, so the image is of a new union that produces offspring.

5When we lived by our sinful nature, sinful desires were stirred up by the law and were at work in our bodies. What they produced led to death.

5For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

Note"In the flesh" is Paul's shorthand, not a comment about bodies being bad. "Flesh" for him means human nature running on its own resources and turned in on itself. "The motions of sins" uses "motions" in its 1611 sense of impulses or passions, not movements. "Our members" means the limbs and organs of the body.

6But now we have been set free from the law, because we died to what once held us. So we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

6But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Note"The letter" means the written text of the law, set against "spirit" as a way of serving. The Greek word for spirit here can be read either as the Holy Spirit or as a new inward manner of life, and translators divide on it. The King James phrase "that being dead wherein we were held" makes the law the thing that died; the Greek participle is plural and attaches the dying to "we," so the sense most translators now take is "we having died to what held us."

7So what should we say? Is the law itself sin? Certainly not. In fact, I would not have known what sin was except through the law. I would not have known what wanting what belongs to others is if the law had not said, "Do not covet."

7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

Note"God forbid" translates a Greek exclamation meaning "may it never be" or "certainly not." The word God is not in the Greek; it is a King James idiom, and it recurs throughout Romans as Paul's emphatic denial of a question he has just raised. "Lust" in 1611 English meant any strong craving, not specifically sexual desire. "Thou shalt not covet" is the tenth commandment, from Exodus 20:17, which forbids setting your desire on what belongs to your neighbor.

8But sin took the chance the commandment gave it, and it produced in me every kind of wrong desire. Apart from the law, sin is dead.

8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.

Note"Concupiscence" is an obsolete word for craving or strong desire; it renders the same Greek root translated "lust" in the previous verse. "Taking occasion" translates a noun that meant a starting point or base of operations for an attack, so the picture is of sin using the commandment as a foothold.

9At one time I was alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin came to life and I died.

9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

NoteFrom here to the end of the chapter Paul speaks in the first person singular, and what that "I" refers to has been argued over since the earliest commentators: Paul's own past or present experience, Adam, Israel receiving the law at Sinai, or a representative "I" standing for anyone under the law. The Greek does not settle the question, and the rendering leaves it open as the text does.

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

10And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.

Note"Ordained to life" refers to the law's own promise: Leviticus 18:5 says of God's statutes "which if a man do, he shall live in them." The commandment was framed as a road to life, which is what makes the outcome Paul describes a reversal.

11For sin took the chance the commandment gave it. Sin fooled me, and through the commandment it killed me.

11For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

Note"Deceived me" uses the verb that the Greek Old Testament puts in Eve's mouth in Genesis 3:13, where the King James has "the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Readers familiar with that story would hear the echo. "Slew me" simply means killed me.

12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and right and good.

12Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

Note"Just" here carries its older sense of righteous, in the right, matching what justice requires. It is not the weaker modern sense of merely fair or reasonable.

13Did something good, then, become death to me? Certainly not. It was sin that did it. Sin used what is good to produce death in me, so that sin would be shown to be sin, and so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

13Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

Note"That it might appear sin" means so that sin might be exposed and shown up for what it is. "Exceeding sinful" renders a Greek phrase meaning sinful beyond all measure, past the point of exaggeration.

14We know that the law comes from the Spirit. But I am only human, sold as a slave to sin.

14For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

Note"Carnal" comes from the Latin word for flesh and means belonging to the flesh, that is, merely human and made of the same stuff as everyone else. It does not carry the modern narrowed sense of sensual or lewd. "Sold under sin" is a slave market image: sold off and delivered into another owner's power.

15I do not understand what I do. I do not do what I want to do. Instead, I do the very thing I hate.

15For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

Note"I allow not" is a trap for modern readers. In 1611 "allow" meant approve or acknowledge, so the King James means "I do not approve of what I do." The Greek verb is the ordinary word for know or understand, which is why most modern versions read "I do not understand what I do." Both senses have been defended; the rendering follows the second. "What I would" throughout these verses means what I want.

16And if I do what I do not want to do, then I agree that the law is good.

16If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

Note"I consent unto the law" means I agree with it and take its side, not that I give it permission.

17In that case, it is no longer I myself who do it. It is sin living in me that does it.

17Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

18For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Note"To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not" means the wanting is right there within reach, while the carrying out is what he cannot find. "My flesh" is the same term as in verse 5: human nature left to itself, not the body as a physical object.

19I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep doing the evil I do not want to do.

19For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20And if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I myself who do it. It is sin living in me that does it.

20Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

21So I find this rule at work: when I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

Note"Law" changes sense here. It no longer means the Law of Moses but a principle or regularity that operates reliably, the way we speak of a law of nature. Paul goes on to play on both senses in the verses that follow, and the Greek word is the same one in every case.

22Deep inside, in my inner self, I love God's law.

22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

Note"The inward man" translates a Greek phrase meaning the inner person, the self considered from the inside. Paul sets it against the outward, visible self elsewhere, as in 2 Corinthians 4:16.

23But I see another law at work in my body. It fights against the law of my mind and makes me a prisoner of the law of sin that is at work in my body.

23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Note"My members" means the parts of the body, the limbs and organs. "Warring against" translates a verb used of an army on campaign, and "bringing me into captivity" means taking me prisoner, as a defeated soldier is marched off. "Law" is used here in the sense of verse 21, a principle at work, and Paul is deliberately setting these rival "laws" against the Law of Moses he has been discussing.

24What a miserable man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that belongs to death?

24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Note"Wretched" means miserable and worn down by distress. "Deliver" means rescue, as from captivity, picking up the prisoner image of the previous verse. "The body of this death" is ambiguous in Greek: it can mean this body that is doomed to death, or the body that belongs to the death he has been describing. Translators divide, and the rendering keeps the ambiguity.

25Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So this is how it stands: with my mind I serve God's law, but with my sinful nature I serve the law of sin.

25I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

NoteThe Greek manuscripts vary at the opening: some read "thanks be to God," others "grace to God" or "the grace of God." "I myself" is emphatic in Greek, throwing weight onto the speaker. "Serve" is the verb for serving as a slave, the same image as "sold under sin" in verse 14.