Romans 7:10-21

¹⁰and I realized that I was separated from God. The laws that I thought would enable me to live eternally as a result of my obeying them caused me to realize that I was separated from God!

¹¹My desire to sin found a way PRS to deceive me by making me think wrongly that I could keep on sinning and at the same time obey those laws enough so that I would live eternally, and thus it caused me to be separated from God PRS.

¹²So we conclude that the laws that God gave to Moses are holy. What God commanded about not coveting, along with all the other things that he commanded, is also holy, and it is just and good.

¹³So, if someone were to object saying, “ The laws that God gave Moses, which are good, ◄resulted in my being separated from God!/did they result in my being separated from God?► RHQ” I would reply, “Certainly they did not do that!” But instead, those laws, which are good, stimulated my desire to sin. I knew that the result was that I was separated from God. And also, because I learned what God had commanded, I knew that what I was doing was truly sinful.

¹⁴We know that the laws that God gave Moses came from God's Spirit. But as for me, I am influenced by my self-directed nature. It is as though I have been forced to become a slave of my desire to sin MET.

¹⁵The things that I do, I often HYP do not understand. That is, sometimes HYP it is the good things that I want to do that I do not do. And sometimes HYP it is the evil things that I detest that I do.

¹⁶Since I do the evil things that I do not want to do, I agree that the laws of God are good.

¹⁷So, it is not that I do evil things because I wish to do them. Instead, what happens is that I do sinful things because the desire to sin causes me to do them. The desire to sin ◄is within/permeates► me PRS.

¹⁸I know that my self-directed nature will not let me PRS do anything that is good. I know this because I want to do what is good, but I do not do what is good.

¹⁹I do not do the good things that I want to do. Instead, it is evil things that I do not want to do that I do.

²⁰Because I do evil things that I do not want to do, it is not that I do evil things because I want to. Instead, I do them because my self-directed nature, which permeates me PRS, causes me to do them.

²¹I find, then, that what always happens is that when I want to do what is good, there is an evil desire present within me that PRS prevents me from doing good.