Romans 7:18

NET Bible® (New English Translation)

For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.

Additional Resources

Referenced Verses

  • John 3:6 : 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
  • Rom 7:25 : 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
  • Titus 3:3 : 3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.
  • Gen 6:5 : 5 But the LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time.
  • Gen 8:21 : 21 And the LORD smelled the soothing aroma and said to himself,“I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, even though the inclination of their minds is evil from childhood on. I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.
  • Job 14:4 : 4 Who can make a clean thing come from an unclean? No one!
  • Ps 51:5 : 5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.
  • Job 15:14-16 : 14 What is man that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous? 15 If God places no trust in his holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes, 16 how much less man, who is abominable and corrupt, who drinks in evil like water!
  • Ps 119:115-117 : 115 Turn away from me, you evil men, so that I can observe the commands of my God. 116 Sustain me as you promised, so that I will live. Do not disappoint me! 117 Support me, so that I will be delivered. Then I will focus on your statutes continually.
  • Matt 15:19 : 19 For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
  • Mark 7:21-23 : 21 For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly. 23 All these evils come from within and defile a person.”
  • Luke 11:13 : 13 If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
  • 1 Pet 4:2 : 2 in that he spends the rest of his time on earth concerned about the will of God and not human desires.
  • Rom 8:3-9 : 3 For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit. 6 For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness. 11 Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you. 12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh 13 (for if you live according to the flesh, you will die), but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
  • Rom 13:14 : 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to arouse its desires.
  • Gal 5:17 : 17 For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want.
  • Gal 5:19-21 : 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!
  • Gal 5:24 : 24 Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
  • Eph 2:1-5 : 1 New Life Individually And although you were dead in your offenses and sins, 2 in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the domain of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest… 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, 5 even though we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ– by grace you are saved!–
  • Phil 2:13 : 13 for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort– for the sake of his good pleasure– is God.
  • Phil 3:12 : 12 Keep Going Forward Not that I have already attained this– that is, I have not already been perfected– but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me.
  • Ps 119:173 : 173 May your hand help me, for I choose to obey your precepts.
  • Ps 119:176 : 176 I have wandered off like a lost sheep. Come looking for your servant, for I do not forget your commands.
  • Rom 7:5 : 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
  • Rom 7:15 : 15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want– instead, I do what I hate.
  • Rom 7:19 : 19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want!
  • Ps 119:5 : 5 If only I were predisposed to keep your statutes!
  • Ps 119:32 : 32 I run along the path of your commands, for you enable me to do so.
  • Ps 119:40 : 40 Look, I long for your precepts. Revive me with your deliverance!
  • Job 25:4 : 4 How then can a human being be righteous before God? How can one born of a woman be pure?
  • Isa 64:6 : 6 We are all like one who is unclean, all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight. We all wither like a leaf; our sins carry us away like the wind.

Similar Verses (AI)

These verses are found using AI-powered semantic similarity based on meaning and context. Results may occasionally include unexpected connections.

  • Rom 7:7-17
    11 verses
    90%

    7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone else if the law had not said,“Do not covet.”

    8 But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

    9 And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive

    10 and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death!

    11 For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died.

    12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

    13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

    14 For we know that the law is spiritual– but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin.

    15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want– instead, I do what I hate.

    16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good.

    17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me.

  • Rom 7:19-25
    7 verses
    90%

    19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want!

    20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.

    21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me.

    22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

    23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members.

    24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

    25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

  • Gal 5:16-17
    2 verses
    75%

    16 But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

    17 For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want.

  • 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

  • Rom 8:1-10
    10 verses
    73%

    1 The Believer’s Relationship to the Holy Spirit There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

    2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

    3 For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

    4 so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

    5 For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit.

    6 For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace,

    7 because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so.

    8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

    9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him.

    10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness.

  • 20 For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

  • 20 For there is not one truly righteous person on the earth who continually does good and never sins.

  • 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not acquitted because of this. The one who judges me is the Lord.

  • 22 Now if I am to go on living in the body, this will mean productive work for me, yet I don’t know which I prefer:

  • 9 and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness– a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness.

  • 17 So whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin.

  • Rom 3:9-12
    4 verses
    69%

    9 The Condemnation of the World What then? Are we better off? Certainly not, for we have already charged that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin,

    10 just as it is written:“There is no one righteous, not even one,

    11 there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God.

    12 All have turned away, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.”

  • 19 For through the law I died to the law so that I may live to God.

  • 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires,

  • 12 Flee Sexual Immorality“All things are lawful for me”– but not everything is beneficial.“All things are lawful for me”– but I will not be controlled by anything.

  • Rom 9:1-2
    2 verses
    68%

    1 Israel’s Rejection Considered I am telling the truth in Christ(I am not lying!), for my conscience assures me in the Holy Spirit–

    2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

  • 21 For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder,

  • 15 They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them,

  • 23 All these evils come from within and defile a person.”

  • 3 For though we live as human beings, we do not wage war according to human standards,