Release from the Law
(Galatians 3:15–25)

1Or are you⁺ ignorant, brothers (for I speak to those knowing the law), that the law rules over the man for as long as the time he lives? 2For the married woman is bound by law to the living husband; but if the husband should die, she is released from the law of the husband. 3So then, of the husband being alive, if she becomes unto another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if the husband should die, she is free from the law, so as not for her to be an adulteress, having become unto another man.

4Likewise, my brothers, you⁺ also have been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, for you⁺ to become unto another, unto the One having been raised out from the dead, so that we should bear fruit to God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins that were through the law were working in our members, to the bearing of fruit to death. 6But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were held, so as for us to serve in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

God’s Law Is Holy

7What then will we say? Is the law sin? Never may it be! But I did not know sin, if not through the law. For I would not have been conscious of covetousness if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”† 8But sin, having taken the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all covetousness; for apart from the law, sin is dead.

9And I was once alive apart from the law, but on the commandment's having come, sin revived and I died; 10and the commandment that was unto life, this was found by me unto death. 11For sin, having taken the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

12So indeed, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Struggling with Sin

13Did that which† is good, then, become death to me? Never may it be! But so that sin might be shown as sin, it is producing death through that which is good to me, so that through the commandment sin might become sinful beyond excess.

14For we have known that the law is spiritual; but I am fleshly, having been sold as a slave under sin. 15For what I carry out, I do not understand. For what I want, this I do not practice; but what I hate, this I do. 16Now if what I do not want, this I do, I assent to the law, that it is good. 17But now I no longer carry it out, but the sin dwelling in me.

18For I know that there does not dwell in me—that is, in my flesh—good. For to want is present with me, but not† to carry out the good. 19For the good that I want, I do not do; but the evil that I do not want, this I practice. 20Now if what I do not want, this I do, no longer do I carry it out, but sin dwelling in me.

21I find, then, the law in my wanting to do good, that evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, 23but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin being in my members.†

24O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me out of this body of death? 25But thanks be to God† through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself indeed with the mind serve God’s law, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Footnotes:

7 Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21
13 BYZ and TR Has that which
18 BYZ and TR but I cannot find how
23 Or captive to the law of sin that dwells within me.
25 BYZ and TR I thank God