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.

I did not receive it from any man, and I was not taught it, but it came to me through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem, to become acquainted with Cephas, and I spent two weeks with him;

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.

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

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 refuse to nullify the mercy of God. For if uprightness could be secured through law, then Christ died for nothing!

This is all I want to ask you: Did you receive the Spirit through doing what the Law commands, or through believing the message you heard?

Have you gone through so much, all for nothing???f it really is for nothing!

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."

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.

Then what about the Law? It was a later addition, designed to produce transgressions, until the descendant to which the promise was made should come, and it was enacted by means of angels, through an intermediary;

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 in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through your faith.

There is no room for "Jew" and "Greek"; there is no room for "slave" and "freeman"; there is no room for "male" and "female"; for in union with Christ Jesus you are all one.

But just as then the child born in the ordinary course of nature persecuted the one born through the influence of the Spirit, so it is today.

But we, by the Spirit, through faith wait for the uprightness we hope for.

For in union with Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the want of it counts for anything, but only faith acting through love.

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

Those who are taught the message must share all their goods with their teacher.