³⁸ Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.^(A) The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”^(B)

⁴¹ “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.^(A) The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[a](A) For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.^{(B) 20} Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.^(C)

²¹ So I find this law at work:^(D) Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being^(E) I delight in God’s law;^{(F) 23} but I see another law at work in me, waging war^(G) against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin^(H) at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?^{(I) 25} Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!^(J)

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law,^(K) but in my sinful nature^[b] a slave to the law of sin.^(L)

⁴² “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.^(A)

³⁶ Be always on the watch, and pray^(A) that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”