Romans 7:14-8:11

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Inner Conflict

¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.^{[a] 15} I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.^{(A) 16} Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability.^{(B) 19} For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,^{(C) 23} but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.^{(D) 24} Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God^[b] through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin.

Life in the Spirit

8 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.^{(E) 2} For the law of the Spirit^[c] of life in Christ Jesus has set you^[d] free from the law of sin and of death.^{(F) 3} For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin,^[e] he condemned sin in the flesh,^{(G) 4} so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.^{[f](H) 5} For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit^[g] set their minds on the things of the Spirit.^{[h](I) 6} To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit^[i] is life and peace.^{(J) 7} For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot,^{(K) 8} and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,^[j] since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.^{(L) 10} But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit^[k] is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus^[l] from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through^[m] his Spirit that dwells in you.^(M)