NEW LIVING TRANSLATION
4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.
5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.
6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
7 Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.”
8 But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power.
9 At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life,
10 and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.
11 Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me.
12 But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.
13 But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.
GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION
4 That is how it is with you, my friends. 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.
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