Romans 5:12-14

J.B. Phillips New Testament

A brief resume—the consequence of sin and the gift of God

¹² This, then, is what happened. Sin made its entry into the world through one man, and through sin, death. The entail of sin and death passed on to the whole human race, and no one could break it for no one was himself free from sin.

^13-14 Sin, you see, was in the world long before the Law, though I suppose, technically speaking, it was not “sin” where there was no law to define it. Nevertheless death, the complement of sin, held sway over mankind from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sin was quite unlike Adam’s. Adam, the first man, corresponds in some degree to the man who has to come.