Romans 7:14-24

GOD’S WORD Translation

God’s Standards Are at War with Sin’s Standards

¹⁴ I know that God’s standards in Moses’ Teachings are spiritual, but I have a corrupt nature, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I don’t realize what I’m doing. I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do what I hate. ¹⁶ I don’t do what I want to do, but I agree that God’s standards are good. ¹⁷ So I am no longer the one who is doing the things I hate, but sin that lives in me is doing them.

¹⁸ I know that nothing good lives in me; that is, nothing good lives in my corrupt nature. Although I have the desire to do what is right, I don’t do it. ¹⁹ I don’t do the good I want to do. Instead, I do the evil that I don’t want to do. ²⁰ Now, when I do what I don’t want to do, I am no longer the one who is doing it. Sin that lives in me is doing it.

²¹ So I’ve discovered this truth: Evil is present with me even when I want to do what God’s standards say is good. ²² I take pleasure in God’s standards in my inner being. ²³ However, I see a different standard ⌞at work⌟ throughout my body. It is at war with the standards my mind sets and tries to take me captive to sin’s standards which still exist throughout my body. ²⁴ What a miserable person I am! Who will rescue me from my dying body?