Am I now trying to win men's favor, or God's? Or, am I trying to be pleasing to men? If I were still trying to be pleasing to men, I would not be a slave of Christ at all.

There is no room for Jew or Greek, no room for slave or freeman, no room for male or female, for you are all one through union with Christ Jesus.

I mean this: As long as the heir is under age he is not a whit better off than a slave, although he is heir of all the property,

So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir by God's own act.

Where is your self-congratulation? For I can testify that you would have torn out your very eyes, if you could, and have given them to me.

For the Scripture says that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave girl, the other by a free woman.

But the child of the slave girl was born in the ordinary course of nature, while the child of the free woman was born to fulfill the promise.

But what does the Scripture say? "Drive off the slave girl and her son, for the slave girl's son shall never share the inheritance with the son of the free woman."

So, brothers, we are children, not of a slave girl but of a free woman.

gentleness, self-control. There is no law against such things.

Let nobody trouble me after this, for I carry on my body the scars that mark me as Jesus' slave.