1. Or do you not know, brothers, (now I am speaking to those who know the law) that the law has dominion over a man only so long as he lives?
2. For example, a woman who is subject to a husband is obligated by the law while her husband lives. But when her husband has died, she is released from the law of her husband.
3. Therefore, while her husband lives, if she has been with another man, she should be called an adulteress. But when her husband has died, she is freed from the law of her husband, such that, if she has been with another man, she is not an adulteress.
4. And so, my brothers, you also have become dead to the law, through the body of Christ, so that you may be another one who has risen from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
5. For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were under the law, operated within our bodies, so as to bear fruit unto death.
6. But now we have been released from the law of death, by which we were being held, so that now we may serve with a renewed spirit, and not in the old way, by the letter.
7. What should we say next? Is the law sin? Let it not be so! But I do not know sin, except through the law. For example, I would not have known about coveting, unless the law said: "You shall not covet."