Romans 7:10-21

¹⁰I discovered that the very commandment that was meant to bring life brought death instead,

¹¹because sin found a way through the commandment to deceive me, and used the commandment to kill me!

¹²However, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, right, and good.

¹³Now would something that is good kill me? Of course not! But sin shows itself to be sin by using good to cause my death. So by means of the commandment, it's revealed how evil sin really is.

¹⁴We realize that the law is spiritual; but I'm all-too-human, a slave to sin.

¹⁵I really don't understand what I'm doing. I do the things I don't want to do, and what I hate doing, that's what I do!

¹⁶But if I'm saying that I do what I don't want to, this shows that I admit the law is good and right.

¹⁷So it's no longer me who does this, but sin living in me—

¹⁸for I know that there's nothing good in me as far as my sinful human nature is concerned. Even though I want to do good, I'm just not able to do it.

¹⁹The good I want to do, I don't do; while the evil I don't want to do, that's what I end up doing!

²⁰However, if I'm doing what I don't want to, then it's no longer me doing it, but sin living in me.

²¹This is the principle I've discovered: if I want to do what's good, evil is always there too.