Letters to the Churches

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.

And if I do what I do not want to do, I admit that the law is good.

In that case, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do.

And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So this is the principle I have discovered: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.

But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man, as an offering for sin. He thus condemned sin in the flesh,

so that the righteous standard of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace,

because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.