4. That is how it is with you, my sisters and 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 all we did ended in 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.
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.
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.
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.