Readings for Lent and Easter

The Law Shows Us What Sin Is

⁷ What should we say, then? Is the Law sinful? Of course not! In fact, I wouldn’t have become aware of sin if it had not been for the Law. I wouldn’t have known what it means to covet if the Law had not said, “You must not covet.”^{[a] 8} But sin seized the opportunity provided by this commandment and produced in me all kinds of sinful desires, since apart from the Law, sin is dead. ⁹ At one time I was alive without any connection to^[b] the Law.^[c] But when the rule was revealed, sin sprang to life, ¹⁰ and I died. I found that the very rule that was intended to bring life actually brought death. ¹¹ For sin, seizing the opportunity provided by the rule, deceived me and used it to kill me. ¹² So then, the Law^[d] itself is holy, and the rule is holy, just, and good.

The Problem of the Sin that Lives in Us

¹³ Now, did something good bring me death? Of course not! But in order that sin might be recognized as being sin, it used something good to cause my death, so that through the rule, sin might become more exposed as being^[e] sinful than ever before. ¹⁴ For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am merely human,^[f] sold as a slave to sin.^[g]