For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death.
Parallel translations
- WEB for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
- KJV For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
- NKJV For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.
- NASB for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it, killed me.
- NLT Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Sin used the commandment to deceive and kill, much as the serpent did in Eden. Sin twists even God's good law to destroy.
Overview
Echoing the deception in the garden, Paul depicts sin as a deceiver that weaponizes the commandment. By promising and then withholding life, sin uses the holy law to bring about spiritual death. The language clears the law of blame and places it squarely on sin.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Gen 3:13Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”
- Rom 7:8But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead.
- Heb 3:13But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
- Isa 44:20He feeds on ashes. His deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
- Rom 7:13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! But in order that sin might be exposed as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
- Jas 1:26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless.
- Jer 17:9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
- Jer 49:16The terror you cause and the pride of your heart have deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks, O occupiers of the mountain summit. Though you elevate your nest like the eagle, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.
- Jas 1:22Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.
- Obad 1:3The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’
- Eph 4:22to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
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Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
How Romans 7:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.