---
title: "Romans 7 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/romans/7/
description: "We are released by Christ from the law and from the guilt of sin, though the… Romans 7 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Romans 7

Romans 7 is chapter 7 of 16 in the Letter to the Romans. Here are all 25 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> We are released by Christ from the law and from the guilt of sin, though the inclination to it still tempts us.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Romans 7 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

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.”
8. But sin, receiving an opportunity through the commandment, wrought in me all manner of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.
9. Now I lived for some time apart from the law. But when the commandment had arrived, sin was revived,
10. and I died. And the commandment, which was unto life, was itself found to be unto death for me.
11. For sin, receiving an opportunity through the commandment, seduced me, and, through the law, sin killed me.
12. And so, the law itself is indeed holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13. Then was what is good made into death for me? Let it not be so! But rather sin, in order that it might be known as sin by what is good, wrought death in me; so that sin, through the commandment, might become sinful beyond measure.
14. For we know that the law is spiritual. But I am carnal, having been sold under sin.
15. For I do things that I do not understand. For I do not do the good that I want to do. But the evil that I hate is what I do.
16. So, when I do what I do not want to do, I am in agreement with the law, that the law is good.
17. But I am then acting not according to the law, but according to the sin which lives within me.
18. For I know that what is good does not live within me, that is, within my flesh. For the willingness to do good lies close to me, but the carrying out of that good, I cannot reach.
19. For I do not do the good that I want to do. But instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do.
20. Now if I do what I am not willing to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but the sin which lives within me.
21. And so, I discover the law, by wanting to do good within myself, though evil lies close beside me.
22. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inner man.
23. But I perceive another law within my body, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me with the law of sin which is in my body.
24. Unhappy man that I am, who will free me from this body of death?
25. The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord! Therefore, I serve the law of God with my own mind; but with the flesh, the law of sin.

## Romans 7 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. An ignoratis, fratres (scientibus enim legem loquor), quia lex in homine dominatur quanto tempore vivit?
2. Nam quæ sub viro est mulier, vivente viro, alligata est legi: si autem mortuus fuerit vir ejus, soluta est a lege viri.
3. Igitur, vivente viro, vocabitur adultera si fuerit cum alio viro: si autem mortuus fuerit vir ejus, liberata est a lege viri, ut non sit adultera si fuerit cum alio viro.
4. Itaque fratres mei, et vos mortificati estis legi per corpus Christi: ut sitis alterius, qui ex mortuis resurrexit, ut fructificemus Deo.
5. Cum enim essemus in carne, passiones peccatorum, quæ per legem erant, operabantur in membris nostris, ut fructificarent morti.
6. Nunc autem soluti sumus a lege mortis, in qua detinebamur, ita ut serviamus in novitate spiritus, et non in vetustate litteræ.
7. Quid ergo dicemus? lex peccatum est? Absit. Sed peccatum non cognovi, nisi per legem: nam concupiscentiam nesciebam, nisi lex diceret: Non concupisces.
8. Occasione autem accepta, peccatum per mandatum operatum est in me omnem concupiscentiam. Sine lege enim peccatum mortuum erat.
9. Ego autem vivebam sine lege aliquando: sed cum venisset mandatum, peccatum revixit.
10. Ego autem mortuus sum: et inventum est mihi mandatum, quod erat ad vitam, hoc esse ad mortem.
11. Nam peccatum occasione accepta per mandatum, seduxit me, et per illud occidit.
12. Itaque lex quidem sancta, et mandatum sanctum, et justum, et bonum.
13. Quod ergo bonum est, mihi factum est mors? Absit. Sed peccatum, ut appareat peccatum, per bonum operatum est mihi mortem: ut fiat supra modum peccans peccatum per mandatum.
14. Scimus enim quia lex spiritualis est: ego autem carnalis sum, venundatus sub peccato.
15. Quod enim operor, non intelligo: non enim quod volo bonum, hoc ago: sed quod odi malum, illud facio.
16. Si autem quod nolo, illud facio: consentio legi, quoniam bona est.
17. Nunc autem jam non ego operor illud, sed quod habitat in me peccatum.
18. Scio enim quia non habitat in me, hoc est in carne mea, bonum. Nam velle, adjacet mihi: perficere autem bonum, non invenio.
19. Non enim quod volo bonum, hoc facio: sed quod nolo malum, hoc ago.
20. Si autem quod nolo, illud facio: jam non ego operor illud, sed quod habitat in me, peccatum.
21. Invenio igitur legem, volenti mihi facere bonum, quoniam mihi malum adjacet:
22. condelector enim legi Dei secundum interiorem hominem:
23. video autem aliam legem in membris meis, repugnantem legi mentis meæ, et captivantem me in lege peccati, quæ est in membris meis.
24. Infelix ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus?
25. gratia Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum. Igitur ego ipse mente servio legi Dei: carne autem, legi peccati.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- cf. CCC ¶ 1963: The Old Law ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 2542: The Desires of the Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- cf. CCC ¶ 1995: Justification ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 2542: The Desires of the Spirit ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 1: or, as long as he liveth.
- Verse 8: Sin, or concupiscence, which is called sin, because it is from sin, and leads to sin, which was asleep before, was weakened by the prohibition: the law not being the cause thereof, nor properly giving occasion to it: but occasion being taken by our corrupt nature to resist the commandment laid upon us.
- Verse 13: viz. To be the monster it is, which is even capable to take occasion from that which is good, to work death.
- Verse 15: The apostle here describes the disorderly motions of passion and concupiscence; which oftentimes in us get the start of reason: and by means of which even good men suffer in the inferior appetite what their will abhors: and are much hindered in the accomplishment of the desires of their spirit and mind. But these evil motions, (though they are called the law of sin, because they come from original sin, and violently tempt and incline to sin,) as long as the will does not consent to them, are not sins, because they are not voluntary.

## Read at Mass (US)

- Fri, Oct 22, 2027 (computed): Friday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, Romans 7:18-25a

Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).