I am 'still preaching circumcision myself,' am I? Then, brothers, why am I still being persecuted? And so the stumbling-block of the cross has lost its force, forsooth!

These men who are keen upon you getting circumcised are just men who want to make a grand display in the flesh ??it is simply to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.

This is why I will send you prophets, wise men, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, some of whom you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town;

for you have started, my brothers, to copy the churches of God in Christ Jesus throughout Judaea; you have suffered from your compatriots just as they have suffered from the Jews,

partly by being held up yourselves to obloquy and anguish, partly by making common cause with those who fared in this way;