Romans 7:2-10

²I’ll talk about one part of the law to show you what I mean. That law says that a woman is only allowed to marry one man. If a married woman sleeps with a man that is not her husband, she breaks that law and she is guilty. We call it adultery. But if her husband dies, there is no law for her about adultery any more, so she can marry another man and sleep with him.

⁴You know that Jesus died for us. His body was dead on the cross. And you believe in Jesus, so it is like you died too. That old law is not for you any more. You belong to Jesus now. He came alive again, and you are alive again too. You have a new life now, so you can do a lot of good things for God.

⁵At first we didn’t believe in Jesus, and our boss was that bad part of us that makes us go wrong. That law told us not to do bad things, but this made us think about those bad things, and we did them anyway. So we had to die.

⁶But now it is like we are dead with Jesus and we don’t have to do anything that old law says any more. And we are alive again too, with the Holy Spirit in us. We live to do whatever God tells us to do.

⁷Some people might reckon the old law is no good because it made us go wrong, but that’s not true. It is like this. The law shows me the things that are wrong. For example, one part of that law says, “Don’t think about getting something for yourself if it belongs to somebody else.” Before I ever knew that law I didn’t ever think like that.

⁸But after I heard that law, then I started to think that bad way. You see, if I don’t ever hear that law I will not go wrong like that.

⁹Before I ever heard the law I was alive, but then that law woke that bad part of me up and now it makes me go wrong,

¹⁰so I have to die. That law’s job was to show me how I can live, but all it did was this, it told me, “You will die.”