Romans 7:13-25

International Children’s Bible

¹³ Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No! Sin used something that is good to bring death to me. This happened so that I could see what sin is really like. The command was used to show that sin is something very evil.

The War Within Man

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual. But I am not spiritual. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. ¹⁵ I do not understand the things I do. I do not do the good things I want to do. And I do the bad things I hate to do. ¹⁶ And if I do not want to do the bad things I do, then that means that I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But I am not really the one who is doing these bad things. It is sin living in me that does these things. ¹⁸ Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is earthly and sinful. I want to do the things that are good. But I do not do them. ¹⁹ I do not do the good things that I want to do. I do the bad things that I do not want to do. ²⁰ So if I do things I do not want to do, then I am not the one doing those things. It is sin living in me that does those bad things.

²¹ So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. ²² In my mind, I am happy with God’s law. ²³ But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. ²⁴ What a miserable man I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? ²⁵ God will. I thank him for saving me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law. But in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.