A familiar feature in Pauline scholarship is the view that Sin as a power, and the concomitant forces of the flesh and death, are the dominant elements in Paul's account of the human plight. The present article seeks not to deny the significance of these elements, but to argue that equally important are ‘sins’ or individual infractions of the divine will. It is argued here that recent developments in Pauline studies have, in combination, led to an unwarranted downplaying of sins plural. In a number of key passages, Paul includes such acts of transgression in his account of the human plight.