For I must tell you, brethren, that the Good News which was proclaimed by me is not such as man approves of.

For, in fact, it was not from man that I received or learnt it, but by a revelation from Jesus Christ.

But to the Christian Churches in Judaea I was personally unknown.

They only heard it said, "He who was once our persecutor is now telling the Good News of the faith of which he formerly made havoc."

I went up in obedience to a revelation of God's will; and I explained to them the Good News which I proclaim among the Gentiles. To the leaders of the Church this explanation was made in private, lest by any means I should be running, or should already have run, in vain.

But although my companion Titus was a Greek they did not insist upon even his being circumcised.

Yet there was danger of this through the false brethren secretly introduced into the Church, who had stolen in to spy out the freedom which is ours in Christ Jesus, in order to rob us of it.

Indeed, when they saw that I was entrusted with the preaching of the Good News to the Gentiles as Peter had been with that to the Jews--

and when they perceived the mission which was graciously entrusted to me, they (that is to say, James, Peter, and John, who were considered to be the pillars of the Church)

Only they urged that we should remember their poor--a thing which was uppermost in my own mind.

And along with him the other Jews also concealed their real opinions, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their lack of straightforwardness.

even as Abraham believed God, and his faith was placed to his account as righteousness?

I mean that the Covenant which God had already formally made is not abrogated by the Law which was given four hundred and thirty years later--so as to annul the promise.

Why then was the Law given? It was imposed later on for the sake of defining sin, until the seed should come to whom God had made the promise; and its details were laid down by a mediator with the help of angels.

Before this faith came, we Jews were perpetual prisoners under the Law, living under restraints and limitations in preparation for the faith which was soon to be revealed.

But, when the time was fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born subject to Law,

And you know that in those early days it was on account of bodily infirmity that I proclaimed the Good News to you,

and yet the bodily infirmity which was such a trial to you, you did not regard with contempt or loathing, but you received me as if I had been an angel of God or Christ Jesus Himself!

But we see that the child of the slave-girl was born in the common course of nature; but the child of the free woman in fulfilment of the promise.

Yet just as, at that time, the child born in the common course of nature persecuted the one whose birth was due to the power of the Spirit, so it is now.