But when God who had set me apart from my very birth,

and had called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach his gospel among the Gentiles, without consulting a human being,

or even going up to Jerusalem to see those who had been apostles before me, I went off at once to Arabia, and on my return came back to Damascus.

Yet there were false brethren who had crept in to spy out the freedom we enjoy in Christ Jesus, in order to enslave us again.

But those in authority??hat they once were makes no difference to me; God is no respecter of persons??hose I say who were in authority had no additions to make my message.

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter has with the gospel for the circumcised

and when they recognized the grace which had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, then thought to be pillars, gave to Barnabas and to me the right hand of fellowship. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the Jews.

To what purpose, then, was the Law? It was imposed later for the sake of transgressions, until the "Offspring" should come to whom the promise had been made. It was arranged through angels by the hand of a mediator.

Is the Law then opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would actually have come from law;

But once, when you Gentiles had no knowledge of God, you were slaves to gods which have no real being.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman;