Romans 7:7-9

Complete Jewish Bible

⁷ Therefore, what are we to say? That the Torah is sinful? Heaven forbid! Rather, the function of the Torah was that without it, I would not have known what sin is. For example, I would not have become conscious of what greed is if the Torah had not said, “Thou shalt not covet.”^{[a] 8} But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, worked in me all kinds of evil desires — for apart from Torah, sin is dead. ⁹ I was once alive outside the framework of Torah. But when the commandment really encountered me, sin sprang to life,