The Law and Sin

⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, ^(A)I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if ^(B)the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, ^(C)seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. ^(D)For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰ The very commandment ^(E)that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, ^(F)seizing an opportunity through the commandment, ^(G)deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So ^(H)the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, ^(I)sold under sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For ^(J)I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with ^(K)the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now ^(L)it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells ^(M)in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ^19 (N)For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, ^(O)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 right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For ^(P)I delight in the law of God, ^(Q)in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members ^(R)another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from ^(S)this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

^13 (A)The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus ^(B)went up to Jerusalem. ^14 (C)In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵ And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make ^(D)my Father's house a house of trade.” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, ^(E)“Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸ So the Jews said to him, ^(F)“What sign do you show us for doing these things?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, ^(G)“Destroy this temple, and in three days ^(H)I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple,^[a] and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But he was speaking about ^(I)the temple of his body. ²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, ^(J)his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed ^(K)the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.