Romans 7:5

Plain English Version

You know, we all have a bad part in us that wants us to do bad things. And at first, when we didn’t believe in Jesus, that bad part in us was our boss. And when that law told us not to do bad things, that bad part in us made us think about those bad things and want to do them, and so we did them anyway. So we had to die.

Cross References

John 3:6

You see, everybody is born from a human mother, that’s how our bodies get life. But if people get born again from God’s Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit gives new life to their spirits too.

Romans 1:26

So, after people turned away from God, he let them do whatever dirty things they thought about. Even women didn’t want to sleep with men any more, like wives do with their husbands, but instead they did things with each other that were not normal.

Romans 4:15

People try to follow that law, but they can’t do it, and whenever they break that law, God gets angry with them and punishes them. So all the law does is give us trouble. (The only way people will not break the law is if there is no law to break.)

Romans 5:20

You see, the law came and showed people that they did wrong things. But that didn’t stop them. They still did wrong things. Yes, people kept on doing more bad things, but at the same time God kept on being good to people, more and more.

Romans 6:19

I’m trying to say this in a way that you will really understand. In the past you used your body for wrong things. It was like those bad things were your boss, so you kept on doing more bad things. But now you have to use your bodies for good things. You work for God, and he gets you to do good things so that you will be his special people.

Romans 6:21

And what did you get after you did bad things? You got shame, that’s all. And you know that people that do those bad things have to die.

Romans 6:23

That’s how it is. If we do bad things, we will get our pay for doing those things. We will die. That’s all the pay we will get. But if we join up to our leader, Jesus Christ, God will give us properly good life. We will live with him for ever.

Romans 7:23

but there is a big fight going on inside us. That bad part of us makes its own law. It makes us think the wrong way. It makes us its prisoners so that we can’t do the things we really want to do.

Galatians 3:10

You see, God will make trouble for those people that reckon they are all right by just following the law. They think that, in the end, God will agree that they are all right. But they are wrong. God says this in his book, “You have to keep on doing everything in the law book, or God will punish you.”

Galatians 5:24

You see, sometimes doing bad things makes people feel good. But people that belong to Jesus Christ stop doing those bad things. That bad part inside them might make them feel like doing those bad things, but they don’t take any notice of it any more. It is like they nailed it to a cross and killed it.

Ephesians 2:11

Think about what you were at first. You were not Jews, so you didn’t belong to the special mob called Israel. And at that time you were not friends with Jesus Christ. You didn’t know that God promised to send him to save us. And before, when God promised to look after the Israel mob if they agreed to keep his law, he didn’t promise that to you. You didn’t know anything about those things. You were living without God, and there was nothing good for you in this world. You didn’t know anything about the young man operation that God told the Jewish people to do on all their boys. That’s the reason why the Jewish people rubbish you. But don’t worry about that. They are only talking about the operation that people do to their bodies. They are not talking about the job that God does inside us.

Ephesians 2:3

And it wasn’t only you mob that were bad. We were all bad. We were like those other people in this world. We did whatever we wanted to do. We did whatever made us feel good. We did whatever our own bodies and minds told us to do. And that made God angry with us, just like he is angry with everyone else.

Colossians 3:5

So now you have to stop doing bad things. If that bad part inside you wants you to do something bad, don’t do it. It’s like you have to kill that old bad part inside you. Don’t listen to it. Don’t sleep with anyone that is not your wife or your husband, as if you are married to them. And don’t think bad, dirty thoughts. Don’t think about doing bad things. Don’t be greedy, wanting lots of money and things. Greedy people respect money and things more than they respect God.

Titus 3:3

You know, we were like that before we believed in Jesus. We did silly things too. We didn’t do what God told us to do. People tricked us, and we believed things that were not true. And we wanted to do all sorts of bad things. We couldn’t stop ourselves. If anybody had a lot of things, we wanted those things for ourselves, and we were angry with those people. We hated people, and people hated us.

James 4:1

Why do you always fight and argue with each other? I’ll tell you why. It is because you only think about things that you want for yourself, to make yourself happy, and you don’t care about anyone else. So you fight everyone else to get the things you want.