I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the mercy of Christ, to some different good news??7 not that there is any other, only that there are some people who are trying to unsettle you and want to turn the good news of the Christ around.

But even if we or an angel from heaven preach to you good news that contradicts the good news we have preached to you, a curse upon him!

We have said it before, and I repeat it now??f anyone is preaching to you good news that contradicts the good news you have already received, a curse upon him!

Is that appealing to men's weaknesses, or to God? Is that trying to suit men? If I were still doing that, I would be no slave of Christ.

For I tell you plainly, brothers, that the good news that I preached is not a human affair.

to reveal his Son to me, so that I might preach the good news about him to the heathen, immediately, instead of consulting with any human being,

(In writing you this, I call God to witness that I am telling the truth!)

After that, I went to the districts of Syria and Cilicia.

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.

But they did not insist that even my companion Titus, although he was a Greek, should be circumcised,

But we did not submit to them for a moment, in order that the truth of the good news might remain yours.

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.

Only, we were to remember the poor, and that I have taken pains to do.

The other Jewish Christians followed his example in concealing their real views, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their pose.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas, right before them all, "If you live like a heathen, and not like a Jew, though you are a Jew yourself, why should you try to make the heathen live like Jews?"

but who know that a man is not made upright by doing what the Law commands, but by faith in Christ Jesus??ven we believed in Christ Jesus, so as to be made upright by faith in Christ and not by doing what the Law commands??or by doing what the Law commands no one can be made upright.

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.

For it is through the Law that I have become dead to the Law, so that I may live for God.

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.

The Scripture foresaw that God would accept the heathen as upright in consequence of their faith, and preached the good news in advance to Abraham in the words, "All the heathen will be blessed through you."

For there is a curse upon all who rely on obedience to the Law, for the Scripture says, "Cursed be anyone who does not stand by everything that is written in the Book of the Law and obey it."

That no one is accepted as upright by God for obeying the Law is evident because the upright will have life because of his faith,

and the Law has nothing to do with faith; it teaches that it is the man who does these things that will find life by doing them.

in order that the blessing given to Abraham might through Jesus Christ reach the heathen, so that through faith we might receive the promised Spirit.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and his line. It does not say, "and to your lines," in the plural, but in the singular, "and to your line," that is, Christ.

If our inheritance rests on the Law, it has nothing to do with the promise. Yet it was as a promise that God bestowed it upon Abraham.

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.

But the Scripture describes all mankind as the prisoners of sin, so that the promised blessing might on the ground of faith in Jesus Christ be given to those who have faith.

But before this faith came, we were kept shut up under the Law, in order to obtain the faith that was to be revealed.

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

But now that faith has come, we are no longer in the charge of the attendant.

to ransom those who were subject to law, so that we might receive adoption.

And because you are sons, God has sent into our hearts the spirit of his Son, with the cry, "Abba!" that is, Father.

But formerly, in your ignorance of God, you were slaves to gods that really did not exist,

but now that you know God, or rather have come to be known by him, how can you turn back to the old, crude notions, so poor and weak, and wish to become slaves to them again?

I begin to be afraid that perhaps the labor I spent on you was wasted.

though you know that it was because of an illness that I preached the good news to you that first time;

What has become of that satisfaction of yours? For I can bear witness that you would have torn out your very eyes, if you could, and given them to me!

These men are making much of you, but not with honorable intentions. They want to shut you out, so that you will have to make much of them.

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

This is an allegorical utterance. For the women are two agreements, one coming from Mount Sinai, bearing children that are to be slaves; that is, Hagar

Why, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ can do nothing for you.

I insist again to any man who lets himself be circumcised, that he is under obligation to obey the whole Law.

That kind of persuasion never came from him who called you!

I am confident in the Lord that you will not take a different view. The man who is unsettling you will have to pay the penalty for it, no matter who he is.

And I, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? If that is the case, the cross has ceased to be an obstacle, I suppose!

For the physical cravings are against the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are against the physical; the two are in opposition, so that you cannot do anything you please.

envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you as I did before that people who do such things will have no share in the Kingdom of God.

Bear one another's burdens, and in that way carry out the law of the Christ.

Why, even those who let themselves be circumcised do not observe the Law themselves! But they want you to let yourselves be circumcised so that they can boast of that physical fact about you!

Let nobody interfere with me after this, for I bear on my body the scars that mark me as a slave of Jesus.