1. Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to those that know the law), that the law has dominion over a man only as long as he lives?
2. For the woman who is subject to a husband is obligated to the law so long as the husband lives; but if the husband dies, she is free from the law of the husband.
3. So then if, while her husband lives, she belongs to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress if she belongs to another man.
4. Likewise ye also, my brethren, are become dead to the law in the body of the Christ that ye should belong to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
5. For while we were in the flesh, the affections of the sins which were by the law worked in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
6. But now we are free from the law of death in which we were held, that we might serve in newness of Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? No, in no wise. But, I did not know sin except by the law; for neither would I have known lust if the law did not say, Thou shalt not covet.