Romans 7:18-23

¹⁸I know that I can’t do anything good by myself. I want to do the right thing but I can’t.

¹⁹I keep trying to do good things, but I can’t. No, I keep doing the bad things I don’t want to do.

²⁰That proves it. It’s not me that does those bad things. It’s that bad part inside me that does those bad things.

²¹This is what happens. It is like another law. Every time I try to do something good, that bad part of me wants to take control and make me go wrong.

²²Really, I myself want to live the right way,

²³but there is a big fight going on inside me. That bad part of me makes its own law. It makes me think the wrong way. It makes me its prisoner so that I can’t do the things I really want to do.