9. Before I knew the law, I was alive. But when I heard the law’s command, sin began to live,
10. and I died spiritually. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death.
11. Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.
12. Now the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good.
13. Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No, it was sin that used the good command to bring me death. This shows how terrible sin really is. It can use a good command to produce a result that shows sin at its very worst.
14. We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave.
15. I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate.
16. And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good.
17. But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it.
18. Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it.
19. I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do.