or going up to Jerusalem to see those who had been apostles before me, I went off to Arabia, and on my return came back to Damascus.

It was in obedience to a revelation that I went. I laid before them the good news that I preach to the heathen, presenting it privately to the leaders, for fear my efforts might be or might have been futile.

to gratify the false brothers who had been smuggled in, who sneaked in to spy upon the freedom we enjoy in Christ Jesus, so as to reduce us to slavery again.

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been intrusted with the good news for the heathen, just as Peter had been intrusted with it for the Jews??8 for he who actuated Peter to be an apostle to the Jews also actuated me to be one to the heathen??9 and when they recognized the favor God had shown me, James, Cephas, and John, who were regarded as pillars of the church, pledged Barnabas and me their co-operation, with the understanding that we should work among the heathen and they among the Jews.

If through our efforts to be made upright through Christ, we have ourselves been proved as much "sinners" as the heathen, does that make Christ encourage sin? By no means.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me. The life I am now living in the body I am living by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Is the Law then contrary to God's promises? By no means. For if a law had been given that could have brought life, uprightness would really have come through law.

So the Law has been our attendant on our way to Christ, so that we might be made upright through faith.

For all of you who have been baptized into union with Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

For you, brothers, have been called to freedom; only do not make your freedom an excuse for the physical, but in love be slaves to one another.

But I never want to boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, on which the world has been crucified to me and I have been to the world.