Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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An Illustration from Marriage
1 Certainly you will understand
what I am about to say, my
brothers, because all of you know
about law. The law rules over people
only as long as they live.
2 A married
woman, for example, is bound by
the law to her husband as long as he
lives; but if he dies, then she is free
from the law that bound her to him.
3 So then, if she lives with another
man while her husband is alive, she
will be called an adulteress; but if
her husband dies, she is legally a
free woman and does not commit
-- --
adultery if she marries another man.
4 That is how it is with you, my
brothers. As far as the Law is concerned,
you also have died because
you are part of the body of Christ;
and now you belong to him who was
raised from death in order that we
might be useful in the service of
God.
5 For when we lived according
to our human nature, the sinful desires
stirred up by the Law were at
work in our bodies, and we were
useful in the service of death.
6 Now,
however, we are free from the Law,
because we died to that which once
held us prisoners. No longer do we
serve in the old way of a written law,
but in the new way of the Spirit.
Law and Sin
7 Shall we say, then, that the Law
itself is sinful? Of course not! But it
was the Law that made me know
what sin is. If the Law had not said,
“Do not desire what belongs to
someone else,” I would not have
known such a desire. note
8 But by means
of that commandment sin found its
chance to stir up all kinds of selfish
desires in me. Apart from law, sin is
a dead thing.
9 I myself was once
alive apart from law; but when the
commandment came, sin sprang to
life,
10 and I died. And the commandment
which was meant to bring life,
in my case brought death.
11 Sin
found its chance, and by means of
the commandment it deceived me
and killed me. note
12 So then, the Law itself is holy,
and the commandment is holy, right,
and good.
13 But does this mean that
what is good caused my death? By
no means! It was sin that did it; by
using what is good, sin brought
death to me, in order that its true nature
as sin might be revealed. And
so, by means of the commandment
sin is shown to be even more terribly
sinful.
The Conflict in Man
14 We know that the Law is spiritual;
but I am a mortal man, sold as a
slave to sin.
15 I do not understand
what I do; for I don't do what I
would like to do, but instead I do
what I hate. note
16 Since what I do is
what I don't want to do, this shows
that I agree that the Law is right.
17 So I am not really the one who
does this thing; rather it is the sin
that lives in me.
18 I know that good
does not live in me—that is, in my
human nature. For even though the
desire to do good is in me, I am not
able to do it.
19 I don't do the good
I want to do; instead, I do the evil
that I do not want to do.
20 If I do
what I don't want to do, this means
that I am no longer the one who
does it; instead, it is the sin that lives
in me.
21 So I find that this law is at work:
when I want to do what is good,
what is evil is the only choice I have.
22 My inner being delights in the law
of God.
23 But I see a different law at
work in my body—a law that fights
against the law which my mind approves
of. It makes me a prisoner to
the law of sin which is at work in my
body.
24 What an unhappy man I am!
Who will rescue me from this body
that is taking me to death?
25 Thanks
be to God, who does this through
our Lord Jesus Christ!
25 This, then, is my condition: on my
own I can serve God's law only with
my mind, while my human nature
serves the law of sin.
Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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