they only heard people say, "The man who once persecuted us is now preaching the good news of the faith he tried to destroy,"

and they praised God for me.

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

Those who were regarded as the leaders??hat they once were makes no difference to me; God takes no account of external differences??he leaders contributed nothing new to me.

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.

For until some people came from James, he used to eat with the heathen, but after they came, he began to draw back and hold aloof, for fear of the party of circumcision.

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?"

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.

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!